Former Darwin Basketball star Timmy Duggan: How I made it to the NBL, overcame my hardships
INDIGENOUS SPORT MONTH FEATURE: Timmy Duggan first made NBL recruiters take notice when, at just 14, he was awarded the 1992 Darwin Basketball Superleague MVP title. He was then the first Territorian to play at the elite level in the 1990s. But there were many hardships along the way. Here’s how he overcame them.
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HE was the first Territorian to make it to the NBL after he debuted for Gold Coast Rollers in 1996 – and the only Indigenous player in the league during that decade.
He also represented Cairns Taipans and went on to play 42 games at the elite level.
So Timmy Duggan knows a few things about overcoming challenges.
Now a mentor with his Hoops 4 Health program and a regular visitor to Don Dale Detention Centre to give life advice to at-risk youth, Duggan’s blueprint for success is simple.
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“I was the first man from the Territory to play in the NBL, and the only Indigenous player in the 1990s, so I was up against it,” Duggan, with Warumungu (Central Australia), Nykinya (Kimberley) and Wagiman (near Pine Creek) heritage, said.
“I had no real support network at the time.
“I was also playing for Cairns Marlins, and we won the national championship back in 1998.
“I was up and down, up and down with my time in the NBL.
“So there were challenges. It was tough. But my message to all young people is to just keep persevering, because that’s when you learn good lessons.”
Duggan – also the founder of the NBL’s Indigenous Round – will be forever grateful for the strong leadership his grandmother Josephine Martin (Talbot) provided him with from a young age.
“Coming from Darwin, I was only 5”11’ and six feet in shoes, but I drew a lot of inspiration from my grandmother,” he said.
“I grew up with her, and she was part of the Stolen Generation.
“She was taken from the Phillip Creek Mission, just north of Tennant Creek in the 1940s, to the Retta Dixon Home in Darwin, so she had to overcome a lot of hardships.
“She showed all her grandkids nothing but love, even though everything she had was taken away from her and she didn’t have much.
“She overcame the most horrific trauma – she was taken from her mother.
“My family’s history is very important to me.”
Josephine would continually provide Duggan with goals to strive for.
It was Josephine who gave him the motivation to meet former multiple world champion boxer and rugby league star Anthony ‘Choc’ Mundine.
They are now best mates and business partners in the Mundine: Mindset of a Champ initiative.
Together, Mundine and Duggan are planning to tour the Territory and Australia, speaking to groups of people who want to learn more about the secrets to their own successes over the years.
They will also provide their insights into how to overcome challenges, and will launch their national tour at a big ceremony and conference in front of the national media in Sydney in August.
“Before I left to play basketball in Sydney, my grandmother showed me an article on Anthony Mundine with his father Tony,” Duggan said.
“And she said ‘you’re going to meet him when you’re in Sydney’.”
That was exactly what happened.
Ever since a then-brash Mundine showed his caring side and introduced himself to Duggan while they were both standout young basketball talents in Sydney in 1992, the two have referred to each other as “brother”.
Duggan was instantly impressed with the way Mundine approached him at a national basketball tournament, the multi-sport budding superstar offering to help him out with anything.
“He was just 15 or 16 years old, and came up to introduce himself to my mum and dad,” Duggan said.
“We saw how genuine he was even back then.
“We drove up to Darwin in 1995 and spoke about what we wanted to do after our careers finished, and we both wanted to help people.
“We want to go through Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, Katherine, the Top End and the Tiwi Islands as part of our national tour.
“We had big plans last year but they were hindered because of Covid-19.”
Mundine also invited Duggan to training sessions when he was the playmaker at St George Dragons in the 1990s.
“I was pretty skinny at the time, so those sessions I did with Choc at the Dragons made me a lot stronger,” Duggan said.
“I developed the strength to dunk after that.
“He really took me under his wing. And a lot of people wouldn’t know this, but Choc was the strongest at the Dragons back then.
“He had the best results in all of the strength tests they did, and I was always trying to keep up with him.
“But that training made me ready to play in the NBL.”
From a young age, Duggan displayed exceptional basketball talent in Darwin.
When he was just 14, he was comfortably the top pointscorer in the 1992 Darwin Basketball Superleague.
Among his newspaper clippings is an NT News article from November 22 of that year when he broke his own point-scoring record in a game, registering 40 in Checkpoint’s 92-71 win over ATA Computers.
“I think people started to notice me when I won the competition MVP that year,” Duggan, who went on to captain the Australian Indigenous team in 1997, said.
“I would be down at the Darwin Basketball Stadium training and shooting everyday.
“We didn’t have mobile phones back then, so it was Rod Topp who came to Darwin and he recruited me to play for Cairns Marlins.
“(Palmerston assistant coach) Steve McGugan and (former NT under-16 coach) Doug Garvie were also very good influences on my career when I was younger.
“I’d spend a lot of time looking at video back then. They were the days of VHS, so it took me days looking through all the vision fast-forwarding and rewinding.”
Duggan – who also organised the recent Indigenous Community Basketball League tournament in Darwin – is delighted at the opportunities basketball now provides young kids in comparison to when he grew up.
“The great thing about being a young player today is how creative you can be on the floor,” he said.
“The style of basketball has changed for today’s players, and it really suits people who bring a bit of flair.
“That’s what a lot of Aboriginal kids have nowadays.
“Back when I was younger the basketball was a lot more structured.”
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