NBL SuperCoach winner David van der Giessen dedicates his win to his late son Jack

Fuelled by inspiration from the heavens, David van der Giessen has become the inaugural winner of NBL SuperCoach. The Brisbane dad explains his pride in honouring his late son Jack.

Most would argue SuperCoach requires a touch of divine intervention.

David van der Giessen’s inspiration came from the heavens in another form.

The Brisbane father became the inaugural SuperCoach NBL champion when his team DoIt4Jack — named after his late son — finished 177 points clear of second at the end of the NBL24 regular season.

“You play SuperCoach and you never think you’re going to be someone that wins one day,” van der Giessen said.

“To see Jack’s name up in lights there, his name being a SuperCoach champion, I just have no doubt at all (he was involved).

“There was just something about this season … there were just things that happened in the SuperCoach season which could only happen with someone looking down on you and being proud of what you are doing.”

The van der Giessen family with a photo of Jack.

Jack was diagnosed with anencephaly – a neural tube defect which causes a baby to be born without parts of its brain and skull – while David’s wife, Lil, was pregnant.

He was alive for only 13 hours after being born two minutes after his twin brother Oliver.

“Basically everything totally looked normal — hands, feet, heart — but unfortunately the skull doesn’t form over the brain during the pregnancy,” van der Giessen said.

“The condition means that normally children with this condition will only last a couple of hours to a week or so once they are born.

“Terribly tough time for my wife having to carry twins full-term knowing we were going to lose one.”

Jack died on Good Friday in 2019 and is survived by five siblings – Sophie (nine years old), Annabelle (six), Oliver (four), Charlotte (two) and six-week-old Elijah.

David and Lil stayed at Hummingbird House, Queensland’s only children’s hospice, during Jack’s short life.

The 40-year-old has channelled his grief into helping other bereaved parents and raising millions through advocacy for the service which aided his family in their time of need.

“Oliver was born at 12.58am and Jack was born at 1am. Jack passed away around 2pm on Good Friday and we moved into Hummingbird House on Easter Sunday,” he said.

“It’s one of these things, obviously it makes Easter a pretty tough period for us now. It’s always fairly synonymous with it. It’s one of these really hard things too because Oliver’s birthday is the same day that his twin brother died.

“It’s just one of these things when you go on this journey that we have been on, you have to find a new norm. It is a tough balance.”

David doing round 19 SuperCoach research while holding newborn Elijah.

Annabelle holding Elijah after he was born.

David has represented Hummingbird House in several charity SuperCoach competitions using the team name DoIt4Jack.

“That’s not an easy thing to do but I also feel because I am doing something in memory of Jack and I am helping people along the way, it helps to heal in many ways,” he said.

“All of these things, as hard as the journey with Jack has been, we have also had a bunch of things … which are all positives that have somehow come out of something so tragic.”

Four of Jack’s five siblings are aware of the brother they only briefly knew.

Elijah will come to learn of Jack’s legacy as he gets older.

“(Twin brother Oliver is) doing so well with it all,” David said.

“I really love that you can hear him articulate about Jack too. We’ve made a point of making sure he knows who he is and it’s great. He can articulate it to his kindy teachers and all that sort of stuff in little presentations, who Jack is.”

Jack shortly after being born with anencephaly.

David somehow found time to juggle his SuperCoach commitments with raising five children, including a newborn who arrived just as he surged into contention for the overall prize — a Mitsubishi ASX valued at more than $29,000.

“When you become a dad and a husband, I had lots of things I obviously liked doing,” he said.

“Then your priorities change and things become about your family. I found a bit of an outlet when it came to SuperCoach.

“I found it was something I was able to do, you can do your research when the kids go to sleep at night.

“Over the years as I started running all the office SuperCoach competitions, it’s sort of just been something that I have been able to find that enjoyment in.

“Once the house is all clean and the kids are asleep as you’re sitting in bed at night, you can go through all the relevant podcasts … and just invest your time that way.”

Elijah’s arrival meant van der Giessen had to juggle life with a newborn and his weekly SuperCoach ritual – watching every press conference for nuggets of information that would give his team an edge.

Ultimately, all David needed was some guidance from above.

And as his team name suggests, he did it for Jack.

“I am just so glad that his name is synonymous with something I have achieved which I am really, really proud of — to be crowned a SuperCoach champion,” David said.

“Just one of those things you never think you’re going to achieve.”

Originally published as NBL SuperCoach winner David van der Giessen dedicates his win to his late son Jack