Basketball: Long journey to the top

By DAVID LEGGAT

It would have been a squeeze sitting around the Book dinner table in the vain hope of a second slice of pie 20 years ago.

There wouldn't have been much leg room, that's for sure.

The Tall Blacks centre was No 8 of 10 children, five boys, five girls. Young Ed was the baby boy of the family. His shortest brother is 1.93m, followed by 1.95m, 1.98m and 2.03m. But all look up to their kid brother at 2.13m.

It's a long way from McKinley High School in industrial Buffalo, the far western point of New York State, on the Canadian border, to running around at the Olympic Games with a silver fern on his chest.

And Book concedes he gives himself the occasional pinch when he thinks of his journey.

Regrets? None, other than the standard lament of a basketballer growing up in the United States whose dreams of playing on the sport's most glamorous stage amounted to no more than that.

"Every kid in the US dreams of playing in the NBA. I had a couple of shots and didn't make it," he recalled.

There were trials with the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks.

Book was at Canisius College in Buffalo when he got a call to try out at the 76ers rookie camp.

"It went well, I was one of the last to be cut." Close but no three-pointer.

He became one of the thousands of basketballers who ply their trade around the globe. A season in Puerto Rico, then another in Luxembourg, where he met Leonard King, at the time an import with the Otago Nuggets.

"He asked me if I wanted to come out as the other [Otago] import. I've been here ever since."

That is, apart from a return to the US for a trial with the Knicks after the 1994 season. When he returned it was to Palmerston North and the start of his second life. At that point, playing in the Olympics was about as far from his thoughts as making a day trip to the moon.

He married Lisa, whom he met in that first year in Dunedin. They have now settled in Nelson, with two children, Amiee, aged four and 14-month-old Joshua.

The ball player with a BA in sociology, now works as a special needs teacher, and spends his working life with children suffering from autism and Downs syndrome.

SINCE 1994 Book has established himself as one of the standout players in the New Zealand domestic game, a big man capable of influencing proceedings around him.

He plays at centre - for the uninitiated, that's NBA star Shaquille O'Neal's position. In close, near or under the basket where the elbows fly. He's not there for the spectacular, frothy baskets from out wide. His is the grunting, banging, barging job.

Two years ago he became eligible for the Tall Blacks. It coincided with the year New Zealand went to the world championships in Indianapolis.

To do that, they had managed the unthinkable, tipping the Australian Boomers out, 2-1, in the series at home to be the Oceania qualifiers.

They finished fourth, enough to secure two spots for Oceania at the Athens Olympics. The US, who in Athens are aiming for a fourth straight gold medal, finished sixth.

That is a point of quiet satisfaction for this courteous, personable giant, who became one of the Tall Blacks heroes in Indianapolis when Sean Marks was ruled out by injury during the tournament.

Book reckons that experience changed the way the Tall Blacks thought of themselves, if not how others viewed them.

"Hopefully our expectations of ourselves are greater now. People always want us to do better than we did before, which is good.

"Going out and believing in ourselves, that's what got us through those key games we had to win at the world champs.

"We believed in Tab [Baldwin, New Zealand coach], we believed in our ability, we believed in the team and we believed in our environment we'd created in the buildup to 2002."

But Book reckons the Tall Blacks still don't always get the respect their Indianapolis effort deserves.

"But now we've caught their eye. Now they have to prepare for us.

"It was 'oh, it's only New Zealand'. Now they know we come out to play hard and fight to the end. We are not going to lie down."

He knows it is important that Indianapolis is not a one-off fluke for New Zealand basketball.

"There are teams who'll be saying 'they've had their show on the stage'. We don't see it as that. We know what we can do and we need to build that consistency and prove that we can compete like that all the time."

It has been a difficult year for Book. His mother died in early June and he returned to the US, arriving back shortly before the domestic league final, when Nelson were beaten 80-68 by Auckland.

What would be better for an American who thought he had left big time basketball for good 10 years ago than a world championship?

A trip to a world championship AND an Olympics.

And the difference between the two teams?

"The biggest change is talentwise. Building up to 2002, I don't think we had a strong, solid base of players as we had to build up this time.

"There have been some really talented players cut and it shows the quality players are improving here and there's a wider base of players in each position."

Of the other big Tall Blacks preparing for the Olympics in Florida, Tony Rampton is nursing a broken thumb and Marks' availability still subject to San Antonio Spurs contract negotiations.

So the guy who sounds like he should be in the stars and stripes once again looms as a key figure if the Tall Blacks are to stand tall in Athens.

TALL BLACKS DRAW

* Aug 15: v Italy

* Aug 17: v China

* Aug 19: v Serbia and Montenegro

* Aug 21: v Argentina

* Aug 23: v Spain