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| Wayne Dawkins |
In 2010, Tristan Thompson and Corey Joseph became the first Canadians named to the McDonald's All-American team, recognized as some of the top players in the United States. This year, three other Canucks partook in the prestigious event, suggesting the stature of basketball in Canada has never been greater.
Yet, this doesn't necessarily tell the whole story.
The number of players being talked about on a national level is minuscule to the number of athletes participating in basketball across the country.
It's a concern Wayne Dawkins, founder and director of PHASE 1 Basketball, an organization designed to develop and showcase top level talent in Canada for the past 16 years, sees as a growing issue within the basketball community. "All we're hearing about (is) which of our handful of Canadian athletes are going to get selected to the top events in the U.S.," Dawkins said. "We have a handful of prestigious U.S. events, like the McDonald's All-American, that Canadians are going to represent and it's a great honor for Canadian athletes to be a part of that. But what is Canada doing to take care of the rest of our athletes? What are we doing to draw attention into our backyard for the outside world?
"It's a step in the right direction for media outlets to go cover our athletes participating in the high school circuit in the States, but my hope is they can give more coverage to high school athletes that are participating in Canadian events. I understand it's about dollars and cents and ratings and different things like that, but the same athletes that they're going to cover are the same athletes they can be showcased here that would also provide more exposure for the other top athletes who have not been selected to the U.S. events."
Amongst those who have played in a national showcase event in Canada was 2011 McDonald's All-American Myck Kabongo and Kyle Wiltjer, who participated in the 10th edition of the annual All-Canada Classic last year at the Air Canada Centre - a premier event featuring the top talent from across the country.
What can be regarded as a factor in the disparity between coverage of Canadians abroad and at home is the severe lack of funding for basketball programs all over the nation.
"I think it's economics more so than anything else, because America is the land of opportunity (and) we're going to invest where the greatest opportunities are, so if we don't create better opportunities for our kids in our backyard, then no one's going to want to invest," Dawkins said. "We spend thousands and thousands of dollars for athletes to leave our backyard, but I think there's a disproportionate amount of money being spent to keep our athletes in our backyard.
"We have to balance out how we're distributing our resources in our basketball community. We need to put more resources into the development of Canadian properties. It is directly going to benefit us in the long run and in terms of keeping our basketball community healthy we won't get into situations where guys (are) getting left out of the U.S. opportunities and it's an outcry. It'll be OK because we'll have the ability to showcase more of our athletes on a comparable level to the U.S."
With limited funding to build programs to keep top talent from fleeing the country, many have blamed large entities such as Canada Basketball for not acting enough to ensure the future for Canadian basketball is a promising experience. But as Dawkins explains, those same entities are strapped by the same limitations other individuals find themselves dealing with.
"Canada Basketball's been fighting all along to just build their organization to a point where they're strong enough to deal with the lack of support. We can't point to somebody who's in the fight with us and blame them, it doesn't work. The reality is we have to really look at the people who do have the type of resources to put into our basketball community and say 'Hey why aren't you doing more?' because if we blame the basketball organization alone, there's only so much you can blame people who are trying to make something happen.
"Without the resources to do what we do, we can't help anybody, we're just fighting to help ourselves."
How to keep the top level athletes in Canada as opposed to seeking greener pastures abroad is a struggle all those in the basketball community will have to deal with.
At PHASE 1 Basketball, the focus will be to promote as many of the Canadians doing it here in their homeland in addition to their counterparts doing it aboard. Through programs such as the All-Canada Classic, Rising Stars Showcase, the All-Canada Prospect Camp and the Elite 1's semi-professional teams, the organization is providing a multitude of opportunities for Canadian athletes to show their worth without having to rely on the U.S. machine to promote, surprisingly enough, in the local markets.
"At PHASE 1 Basketball we've established some great basketball properties to benefit the Canadian sporting community and we want to continue to develop these properties until they are on the level of major events in the U.S. and the rest of the world, in order to better benefit our athletes that are not going to get acknowledged by the global basketball community."
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