Cairns basketball stalwart Williams locked in as Taipans assistant

He is a man synonymous with Cairns basketball, and now Kerry Williams will take another step on his journey through the coaching ranks as a newly-appointed assistant coach at the Taipans.

HE is a man synonymous with Cairns basketball, and now Kerry Williams will take another step on his journey through the coaching ranks as a newly-appointed assistant coach at the Taipans.

Williams’ appointment was announced on Wednesday, joining Sam Gruggen in assistant coach roles to new head coach Adam Forde.

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And the 34-year-old Cairns basketball stalwart could not be more proud.

“I love the club, it’s always supported me and I’ve always wanted to give back, I always want to support Cairns, Cairns Basketball and the Taipans,” Williams said. “It’s all I know.”

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One of Williams’ key strengths is in the way he relates to the players and people around him, and it’s where he believes he will make his best impact – beyond, of course, the basics of relaying Forde’s messages to the players.

“I’m just going to learn as much as possible. My job is to repeat and make sure what Fordey wants is being repeated to the boys and that we’re all on the same page.

“I like to relate to players and people; that’s who I am, and I’ll keep being who I am.

“It’s really good. Fordey knows what he wants, I know what my role is, all the boys have bought in. It’s been good.”

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Williams is a Cairns junior who developed into a national and elite point guard who won titles for the Marlins and represented the Taipans in 105 games in the NBL.

Since retiring as a player, he has become a leading coach, one who led the Dolphins for two years, held important roles as part of Basketball Queensland’s development structure, and earlier this year was an assistant for the Boomers in their clash with New Zealand in Cairns.

This year, he took the reins of the Marlins, the team with whom he won state and national championships as a player, and has steered them to the finals of the first NBL1 North competition.

Williams has taken lessons from every step on his journey to inform the type of coach he is, and Forde has already had an impact on the man.

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“I’ve taken a lot of different bits and pieces from those experiences … which have helped me coach,” he said.

“When Adam first came up here, I spent a day with him and I picked up a few things in that one day and I’ve changed the way I coach at Marlins, my approach, it’s helped a lot.”

Taipans CEO Mark Beecroft, one of Williams’ biggest supporters over the years, said he was proud of how far Williams has come in his career.

“Kerry has always been committed to this club and his coaching talent continues to be recognised through his positions at Cairns Basketball, his roles with BQ and his recent representation at the Australian Boomers,” said Beecroft.

“There is also some nostalgia in it for many of us that have been involved with basketball in Cairns over the years, having seen a young Kerry Williams and a young Nathan Jawai stomping the grounds of CBI as teenagers and the journey they have both taken. We managed to reunite them in the NBL1 this year, but it is equally as meaningful to get them both back in orange and I know the fans are going to love it.”

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Originally published as Cairns basketball stalwart Williams locked in as Taipans assistant