Game on: Cairns club’s bold vision for women’s sport in the Far North revealed
Hoop dreams can become a reality for a generation of Far North girls with Cairns Basketball’s top boss flagging the establishment of a WNBL team and boosting participation as the association’s top priorities.
Cairns
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cairns. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Hoop dreams can become a reality for a generation of Far North girls with Cairns Basketball’s top boss flagging the establishment of a WNBL team and boosting participation as the association’s top priorities.
Newly appointed president and longtime committee member Chris Van Dorssen has wasted little time drawing up the game plan for one of Queensland’s strongest basketball clubs.
Included in Cairns Basketball’s vision is expanding its Manunda facilities, with a plan to build a boutique stadium to serve as the women’s teams’ home base and headquarters in the future.
The announcement follows premier David Crisafulli declaring that Cairns will host basketball games as part of the 2032 Olympics on Tuesday.
“We’ve got so many more girls playing than when I first started,” Mr Van Dorssen said, who joined Cairns Basketball more than a decade ago.
“I’d love to have a WNBL team. That would be amazing for Cairns – to have two national basketball teams – along with the Taipans – and I think we can do it.”
Tentative negotiations have already started around building on vacant land running along Gatton St near West Cairns Bowls club, expanding the area’s existing sporting precinct.
“We’re in the process of talking with the (Cairns Regional) Council about some land they may be able to assist us with,” Mr Van Dorssen said.
“We could make that area into potentially a 5000-seat arena for a WNBL team. It’d be great to see.
“We could play juniors here all day and then have it roll into a WNBL game on a new court, if we can build it and get funding for it.”
Grassroots growth in the sport had led to more girls lacing up their sneakers with the registrations to play under 12 representative basketball doubling this year, development manager Myra Donkin said.
“We’ve seen a drastic improvement in the girls’ program,” the former Cairns Dolphin said.
“That has a lot to do with a fifth club in the association now, the Northern Beaches Heat.
“They’re really out there, active, in schools and getting kids registered. There are so many fresh faces around the association.”
The prospect of having a women’s team playing on a parquet floor in Cairns would lead to an explosion in the number of girls with basketballs in their hands’, Ms Donkin said.
“The boys have something they identify with and that they can watch and idolise (in the Taipans),” she said.
“It’s about us being out in the community more to introduce girls to the game. I think they automatically think of going to netball or dance, whereas we’ve got this great product.”
A WNBL team would add one more rung in the ladder for female hoopers in the Far North.
“You have a chance to represent your region, state and country,” Ms Donkin said.
“There are pathways in professional sport for women. So, it’s a cool space that not a lot of sports have on the female side.”
Mr Van Dorssen, who is also the general manager of Cairns’ Meals on Wheels, has replaced outgoing president Mark Beecroft.
Cairns Regional Council outlined its vision to become the women’s capital of sport last year.
More Coverage
Originally published as Game on: Cairns club’s bold vision for women’s sport in the Far North revealed
Fabrication firm undertakes huge jetty project in boost for the region
A Far North business has embarked on a huge task to build a new wharf which will be shipped to the Northern Territory to replace a jetty destroyed by a Cyclone Megan bulk carrier incident.
World-first revealed for $7m mountain bike race
Crankworx Cairns will debut a world-first race event expected to push elite mountain bike riders to the brink when the event returns to Cairns for the fourth consecutive year in May.