Grant Wallace quits as Geelong NBL1 coach over the club’s succession plan for 2025

Grant Wallace was preparing for a new season, but then Geelong told him he would be replaced regardless of performance as part of a succession plan - so the coach immediately quit.

Geelong United’s NBL1 men’s coach has quit after he said he was blindsided by the club’s attempt to foist on him an AFL-style succession plan.

Grant Wallace said he felt “kicked in the guts” when United told him he would be out at the end of next season — irrespective of team performance — amid a plan to elevate former Adelaide 36ers development coach Jamie Petty to the senior role.

“(If) we win the championship, It doesn’t matter, bit like Mick Malthouse and Nathan Buckley (Collingwood, 2011),” Wallace told this masthead.

“I guess I’m getting too old, now, to worry about it, as far as the (Alastair) Clarkson-Sam Mitchell (Hawthorn, 2021) scenario.

“I just told the club that’s not going to work for me, and good luck.”

But Geelong United chief executive Mark Neeld denied the club had forced the succession plan on Wallace.

“That is not the message from the club at all, not even close,” Neeld said.

“We wanted to check with Grant, see if he has any interest, and then take it from there.

“There have been no firm decisions made on anything.”

Geelong United Supercats recruit Matt McCarthy with head coach Grant Wallace. Photo: Geelong United Basketball

Wallace was appointed men’s coach at the beginning of the 2023 season and said he helped Geelong recruit Petty to lead the women’s squad in the second-tier competition — on a three-year deal.

With United’s entry into the WNBL this year, Wallace said the club wanted its NBL1 women’s coach to assist senior coach Chris Lucas.

He said Petty trialled for the AC job but was unsuccessful, so, Wallace believes the plan was hatched to keep the former Basketball Queensland high performance coach.

“That meant Jamie was out of a job and they didn’t want to lose him, so they wanted him to be my assistant coach for one year, and then in 2026 he would take over, regardless of how we finished in the season in 2025,” Wallace, who took United to within five points of eventual champions Eltham, said.

“For me, it’s not fair on the players, because they’re going to be thinking about what their tenure is, who are they going to listen to, me or Jamie, next year?

“I think it’s a better scenario that I just exit and give the players some certainty, pre-season and moving forward.”

Grant Wallace has quit his job as coach of the NBL1 Geelong United Supercats basketball team . Picture: Mark Wilson

Neeld said the succession idea was floated among a number of options as part of its future planning and insisted no firm decision had been made.

“Grant has done an outstanding job and we have been so pleased with everything he has done,” Neeld said.

He denied the club had decided its WNBL assistant would coach the women’s NBL1 team.

Wallace, who is Basketball Victoria’s head of high performance, said he was saddened by the situation.

“I was so happy, and we were building something really special there in Geelong, which is the other part that really upsets me,” Wallace said

“We were building a nice culture, rebuilding and developing as many Geelong players as we possibly could.

“Kicked in the guts but, anyway, that’s life.”

Neeld said Saturday he’d reached out to Wallace to discuss the situation but was yet to hear back.

Wallace is a former NBL player, spending the 1988-89 season with the former North Melbourne Giants and has coached more than 550 second-tier games, along with Australian junior teams.

Originally published as Grant Wallace quits as Geelong NBL1 coach over the club’s succession plan for 2025