Page 57 - Tropic Magazine Issue 13

TAIPANS 20 TH SEASON ANNIVERSARY

Hail the Orange Army

Taipans fans are among the
most passionate and vocal in
the NBL, a reputation set to
get louder in the 20th season.

We who believe

Words Agent Orange
Taipans tragic and Tropic columnist

Since October 12th 1999, millions of
shots have been attempted, thousands
of whistles blown, tonnes of ice applied
to groins, knees, ankles and into the
odd rum and coke. Twenty times has
our little blue spherical obloid circled
around the glowing ball of nuclear fire
that we call our sun, 20 years since the
likes of Terry Johnson and Troy Boundy
took those first official steps onto the
Convention Centre’s pine for the first
Cairns Taipans home game.
Ten years earlier, anyone suggesting
that Cairns might have its own national
basketball team would have been sent
to an institution for the criminally insane.
Cairns Basketball was in a state, and the
Marlins could count their wins on Odin’s
eyes. It took Herculean amounts of
blood, sweat and tears from a dedicated
group of believers to take Cairns
Basketball from a backwater sporting
outpost to a professional organisation
capable of sustaining a national team.
My dad was one of those who believed,
and that belief was passed on to me.
That’s how sport transcends from being a
game where grown men throw sacks of
pressurised air at each other to become
a shared experience across generations.
The ups and downs, the good times and
bad… I can’t wait to share the next 20
years with my son.

Check out Agent Orange’s unique
Taipans column every Wednesday
on tropicnow.com.au

57 • tropicnow.com.au