Brian Kerle

HTML <h2><strong>No 41 BRIAN KERLE</strong></h2>

HTML <h2><strong>6 feet 7 inch (200cm) Forward/Centre</strong></h2>

HTML <h2><strong>1972 Olympic Games</strong></h2>

HTML <p>In 1981 Brian Kerle could see basketball going places. He was determined to help make it all happen. On Mondays and Tuesdays he rana bingo game for the St Kilda Club. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday he worked for the Victorian Basketball Association and worked in a restaurant a couple of nights a week. Hecoached St Kilda during the week and on weekends. Such was the drive that so typified his work ethic, passion for basketball, imagination and determination that stamped him as a basketball player and coach.</p>

HTML <p>Brian Edward Kerle was born on the 29th of August in 1945 in Auchenflower, Brisbane, Queensland. He and his family moved around the State a lot as his father was transferred in his job as a policeman. His father was a very good all-round sportsman and a first grade rugby league player. Rugby league became Brian’s game as well but being so tall he was at a big disadvantage and also played against older boys, so tennis became his game and he was the school tennis champion at Rosedale, Mt Isa. </p>

HTML <p>When he was sixteen Brian’s family moved back to Brisbane where he began work as a tyre-fitter. Tennis still took up his time as he and his mates travelled around playing in tournaments. A chance meeting at Woolloongabba PCYC introduced him to basketball. He loved it. He was twenty years of age at the time. Heplayed for a basketball team called Oxley who were a soccer team that played basketball in the off season. In 1966 the team lost the Grand-Final to Lang Park PCYC. The coach at Lang Park Vince Hickey enticed Brian to change Clubs and join Lang Park. “I admired Vince so much as a person and a Coach....I owe him so much and I’ll never forget what he did for me,” says Brian. </p>

HTML <p>The Australian Championships were held in Brisbane in 1965 and Brian was able to see some of the greats of the game up close and he wanted to be like them. Hickey coached Brian in the Brisbane team that played in the second tier of the South Eastern Conference (SEC) and the experience of playing interstate basketball was immense for the fast learning twenty one year old.</p>

HTML <p>In 1967 Brian won his first A Grade title as a member of the Lang Park PCYC team. Then he was recruited by Bruce Johnstone and Alan Landells to play for St Kilda in Melbourne. </p>

HTML <p>At St Kilda Brian at first played under the coaching of Alan Landells and then in 1968 came under the coaching of charismatic coach Ken Cole who had just returned from playing at the1968 Olympic Games. Kerle was now working at basketball every day and improving rapidly. He was a strapping 200cms and 91kg, slight for a big man in basketballbut he made up for that with his fierce competitiveness.</p>

HTML <p>In 1969 he was selected to the Victorian Team to play at the National Championships inLaunceston. At the conclusion of the Championships, which Victoria won, he was selected to the Australian Team to compete in the 1970 World Championships in Yugoslavia. For Kerle the World championships were, “An unfortunate introduction to international basketball as we defeated only one team and we had trouble defeating them!”</p>

HTML <p>Back home and in 1971 Kerle played on the Australian Team that defeated New Zealand in the Olympic Qualification Tournament and won the right to go to the Olympics the next year. However he was not confident of selection as the Australian Olympic Squad then added three Americans who had naturalised....Ken James, Tom Bender and Rocky Crosswhite. “Two of those were big guys,” says Brian.</p>

HTML <p>But selected he was, and due to injuries and opportunities Kerle had a very good 1972 Olympic Games and established himself as one of Australia’s front-line players in the Olympic Tournament.</p>

HTML <p>The assassination of the Israeli athletes by the Palestinian terrorists remains vivid in his memory. “The Australia Team Quarters were only 400 metres from where the tragedy took place,” recalls Brian.</p>

HTML <p>One of Kerle’s standout games in the Olympic Tournament was in the final game against Poland when he scored ten points and grabbed five rebounds in the all important win to gain 9th place. The 9th place was an excellent result for the Australians particularly after their failures in the 1968 Mexico Olympics and 1970 World Championships.</p>

HTML <p>Back in Australia after the Olympic Games Kerle continued to play with St Kilda and develop his own tyre business.</p>

HTML <p>When the Australian Team for the 1974 World Championship was named Kerle was again selected. This time he was off to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. The team failed to perform as well as they had done in Munich but steps were being made by Australian basketball nevertheless.</p>

HTML <p>Leading into the 1976 Montreal Olympics Kerle was battling to overcome a knee injury and though he was selected in the squad for the Games he was not selected in the final team. He was devastated as he had done so much to overcome his injury and remembers, “I was taking cortisone injections for months and months in an effort to overcome my injury.” After his non-selection he decided to undergo knee surgery and was out of the game for six months. He was now 32 years of age and though he had started basketball later than most his big body and the constant pounding were taking their toll. He played spasmodically and was surprised in 1978 when he received a call-up to the Australian Team to play New Zealand in the Qualification Tournament for the 1978 World Championships. </p>

HTML <p>Kerle remembers he felt that the young players he had a St Kilda, Larry Sengstock and Danny Morseu should be selected. “I didn’t want to go but Lindsay Gaze the Coach talked me into it. I only played two or three minutes a game.” The Aussies won the series but only after a huge scare when NZ for the first time beat Australia in one game.</p>

HTML <p>That tour to New Zealand was the end of Kerle’s international basketball career as a player.</p>

HTML <p>Kerle had succeeded David Lindstrom as Coach at St Kilda in 1978. He threw himself behind the establishment of the National Basketball League (NBL) in 1979 and under his guidance St Kilda won the first NBL title that year.</p>

HTML <p>Brian Kerle had begun an incredible coaching career.</p>

HTML <p>Kerle would go on to coach 456 NBL games, twice winning NBL Coach of the Year honours (1984 and 1990) and coaching St Kilda to NBL titles in 1979 and 1980. After five seasons with the Saints he moved to Brisbane in 1984. At Brisbane he was to set Australian basketball alight with his promotional, recruiting and coaching skills. In his first year in Brisbane he guided the Bullets to the Grand Final of the NBL and followed this up in 1985 by winning Brisbane’s first NBL title. In 1986 he had the Bullets back in the NBL Grand-Final and won another NBL title in 1987. He retired from coaching after leading Brisbane to yet another NBL Grand-Final in 1990.</p>

HTML <p>During his NBL career Kerle also served as Assistant Coach to the Boomers at the 1986 World Championships and the 1988 Seoul Olympics where the Australian Team made the medal round for the first time.</p>

HTML <p>Brian Kerle was an outstanding basketball player for Australia. His dedication, determination, toughness and love of the game made him one of the greats of the game in Australia as a player and as a coach.</p>

HTML <p> “All I can say is that I love basketball!” concludes Brian.</p>

HTML <p>Kerle is now retired and lives most of the year in Thailand with his wife.</p>

HTML <p>In 2006 Brian Kerle was inducted into the NBL Hall of Fame as a Coach.</p>

HTML <p>Brian Kerle training for Australia (Courtesy B. Kerle)</p>

HTML <p>Brian Kerle rebounding for St. Kilda against Perry Crosswhite (11)</p>

HTML <p> (Courtesy B. Kerle)</p>