“There would be things he would hear from the sidelines, not necessarily directly at his face because he was so good, but he’d hear from the sidelines people making derogatory comments,” Mills said.
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“I had coaches come up to me and … say Patrick is a leader, but they’ve decided they’re going to take this non-Indigenous boy to be the captain. They said they could communicate with him, but not with Patrick.
Patty Mills’ Ben with the University of Queensland’s Dr Keane Wheeler.
“All those experiences that he’s had and had to go through to get into those programs, that’s put him in that position that he’s in. That’s almost like the standard for these kids … they’re often overlooked unless they’re 10 times outstanding.
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“We’re creating a pathway for them to go on as far as they can to Brisbane 2032. That’s certainly something Patrick is setting up the program for, having in mind Brisbane.”
IBA has partnered with the University of Queensland to boost sporting, educational and cultural pathways for young Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders.
Lead researcher Dr Keane Wheeler, a Ngarabal man, said the goal was to foster an Indigenous Basketball Australia Centre at UQ.
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“The timeline is a little bit open … we’re really trying to co-design this program with IBA, so we can have long-term success and not short-term outcomes,” Wheeler said.
“We know that participation in sport and physical activity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children is strong, it’s around that year 6 and 7 mark in school they start to drop out of physical activity.
“So how do we get a clear articulation of the pathways from young people through to adults, coaches?
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“How do we keep those young peoples in the system so that we can allow physical activity to occur and allow participation in basketball?
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“We need to employ a wider agenda when we’re working in sport, so we can promote community connectivity, the essence of different culture embedded into the program, and really work on these driving needs.”
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