Native Liverpudlian Dave Smith is relishing being tasked with developing Yorkshire’s rising basketball talent as he tells TONY KELLY.

THE future of York – indeed – the future of Yorkshire basketball is in the hands of Dave Smith – and it is an iron, disciplined and dedicated grip which the York College teacher applies to the sport of hoops and dreams.

For the second year in succession, Smith has been confirmed as the Yorkshire area performance coach for England Basketball, the body which governs the development of the game nationwide.

That remit is to scour the county pinpointing emerging talent from the age groups covering 12, 13 and 14-year-olds and then developing that talent into the next generation of leading players.

Each of the area performance centres – Yorkshire has sprung alongside Lancashire and the North-East from the original and too wide-ranging North of England APC – are programmed to provide a professional standard in all areas with particular focus on the quality of coaching and teaching.

The APCs are also designed to provide a pathway to the regional teams and then on to the national squads.

“That seems obvious, but when you look at something like English football’s experiment with Lilleshall and then at tennis in this country, it does not always happen that talented youngsters come through,” said Smith.

“England Basketball are determined to get the best players together from across the country, to try to make sure we identify talent and then continue to nurture it, so it is not lost.”

None of the centres will have a more passionate advocate of the sport than Smith.

Besides his Yorkshire remit, he also heads the basketball section of the feted sports development centre at York College, and runs the York Eagles basketball club which provides a brace of under-14 teams who play at national and regional level.

His competitive involvement with the sport spans almost four decades. His own playing and coaching experience straddles the length and breadth of England, as well as spreading to the United States, where basketball is pre-eminent in the respective professional, collegiate and schools arenas.

Even in the face of gridiron, baseball, ice hockey and ‘sahhkar’ – as our American cousins pronounce football – Smith believes basketball to be king in America, likening its hold on the public consciousness to the dominance which football enjoys in England.

And for Smith basketball is king, full stop, or – to continue the Stateside vernacular – period.

It was while taking various sports periods as a physical education teacher at Binley Park Comprehensive School in Coventry in the mid-1970s that Smith’s devotion to the sport of hoops and glory first developed.

He was coaching a group of teenagers who all had more skill than him, ribbing him good-naturedly about that. So he enrolled in a team, soon reached national league standard and started to organise the school teams into a playing force.

Since then he has led several teams to success including university and high-profile coaching postings in America.

He initiated the first international basketball camps at Leeds Metropolitan University, which in two weeks grew into the largest basketball camp in the United Kingdom. He inaugurated the first Yorkshire International camp to York in 1997, which have been held in the city ever since.

Nationally, coach Smith’s ability has been recognised with appointments as GB team manager for the Student Games men’s team and as a director of coaching for England Basketball.

He started the York Vikings Basketball Club, which fielded national league teams at five different age groups in a four-year spell.

After more work in the States and back in England, coach Smith was appointed head coach of the York College basketball development centre two years ago and last year was appointed by EB as the Yorkshire area performance centre coach as well as setting up the York Eagles junior club.

Originally he was a talented footballer in his youth back in his native Liverpool. And he maintains that both football and basketball are kindred sports.

“There is a perception that it’s a sport in which it is too easy to score,” said Smith.

“But it is so like football over here. It has the same level of power, pace, skill level, team-play, awareness of others.

“When you get parents coming along they are genuinely and pleasantly surprised at how competitive and physical it is.”

Smith insisted basketball in England was increasing in interest and not simply because there was greater access to the pinnacle of the sport, the NBA in its American heartland.

“Basketball is rising in popularity all the time and especially among youngsters,” he said. But it was still vitally important to get the message across to schools and the younger the better, said the Yorkshire coach.

Praising York City Knights for their initiatives in attracting youngsters to rugby league, Smith said it would be ideal to bring basketball through to primary schools, pointing out how one of the members of the current York College basketball team, Tom Storr, he remembered from attending a try it session at York High School several years ago.

“That’s how the Americans do it – they get them interested as young as possible,” he added.

The Yorkshire APR, which he heads, will meet monthly at York College to use the Sim Balk Lane premises’ “superb facilities” for tactical, technical and training sessions to improve the better players.

The centre will cater for around 35 of the country’s leading players across the various age groups from 12 to 14 and hopefully will provide a platform for a natural progression to county and national representation.

Said Smith: “I still think there are not enough opportunities for youngsters who want to take up sport in this country.

“Basketball is a great sport and while it may sound clichéd coaching is an area in which I can best give something back to a game that has given me so much.

“And I am up for the challenge and giving youngsters more opportunities to play basketball.”