24/05/2002
End of an era as Routledge steps aside

After 14 years in the role, Riders' Kevin Routledge has stepped aside as Chairman of the BBL. At the annual election of Chairman at a BBL Board meeting yesterday, he chose not to stand and Vincent Macaulay of Milton Keynes was unanimously elected as his replacement.

Routledge took over from John Deacon as Chairman of the BBL in 1988 and is the longest serving member of the BBL Board of Directors, but business commitments which have seen him commuting regularly to Canada forced him to call it a day.

"My business commitments, particularly in Canada, meant that I am not going to be able, for the foreseeable future, to put in the time that is necessary," he admitted, although the decision itself was not an easy one.

"It was a very hard decision to make because I've been doing it now for over 14 years," he continued. "Obviously, I've invested a lot of time and effort in it and I still have a lot of ideas and thoughts of how we should be going forward. But also I think it's the right time to make a change."

Before he took over, barely a year in the BBL's lifespan, clubs came and went with alarming regularity and there was no television coverage of any sort.

The increased stability and coverage on both satellite and terrestrial television are two of the most obvious by-products of his leadership. The make up of the running of the league has changed too. When he took over it was a small board who reported back to the clubs, now there is a representative from each club on the Board, thus giving the all the clubs a say in the key decision making.

"In terms of the finances of the league as a whole, we have come on leaps and bounds and arguably it's in better shape than it ever has been. It is nevertheless a tough market out there in terms of sponsorship and TV and we are still facing very significant challenges going forward and that again is another good reason that the time is right to have a change.

"I think what we've seen is a steady development of the league, greater involvement by the owners in its running and we've obviously got to a position where we've got weekly TV coverage - that was one of the objectives we set ourselves right at the beginning. We also set ourselves an objective of getting ourselves into better arenas and although that has been a rocky road to some extent, broadly we are in better venues then when we started. You never feel like you've made as much progress as you would have hoped for, but I still think we are sitting in a position where the next year or so will be crucial, particularly with all the fall out from NTL and ITV Digital and what is happening in the TV market generally."

Macaulay, who played and coached in basketball before becoming an owner, now becomes the third Chairman in BBL history and, as the second longest serving board member after himself, Kevin believes the league have got the right man at the helm.

"I think Vince will do a good job," he said. "He is someone who has built up a lot of experience over the last 7 or 8 years that he has been involved at the BBL. He's a good man for consensus and the fact that he was the unanimous choice of the Directors augurs well for the future."

The BBL Board of Directors paid a glowing tribute to their outgoing Chairman, with Macaulay himself adding; "On behalf of the entire board, I wish to thank Kevin for his efforts over the last 14 years. He has been an excellent Chairman and has worked tirelessly for the benefit of British basketball."

03/05/2002
Mims snaps up Renton

Billy Mims has made his second signing of the summer with the addition of Englishman Guy Renton.

The 6'7" forward played briefly in the BBL with Westfield Sharks Sheffield in 1998/99 and picked up League and National Cup winner's medals, but it was a friendly last summer in which he really caught Mims' eye.

"In the pre-season he scored 42 points on us for Mansfield," recalled Mims. "We had Billy Singleton try to guard him, we had Steve McGlothin try to guard him, Jermaine Brown marked him, Jon Gaines marked him, Neil Turner marked him - I was about ready to throw the kitchen sink at him to see if that would stop him.

"We had no way to stop this kid from scoring and although we won the game handily it has been from that moment that I thought this guy in our system would really blossom as a player. He needs to be in a system that is going to give him a green light and the confidence to say 'if you're open, shoot the ball because we are confident you are going to make more than you miss'."

Renton, 27, spent eight years in America honing his skills, first at high school alongside former Rider Todd Stone and BBL players Lee Walker and Stuart Robbins, and then four years at Tennessee Wesleyan University.

"TWU is one of the stronger NAIA programmes in the country and competes in one of the tougher NAIA Conferences," said Mims. "He got a lot of court time in his four years, his team was a quality team with quality coaching and they were competitive both in their conference and nationally and they played against NCAA Division One teams too and that kind of experience is very beneficial to BBL success. He's 27-years-old, he's mature, he's talented and in our opinion right now he's the man.

"We have said all along that we want to strengthen our English contingent of players and I thought last year Neil Turner did a very good job for us but we are not going to have Neil back he has now left the club to persue a full-time business career working in London and will probably not play basketball anymore. He's probably going on to life after basketball.

"The other thing is we never got a lot of scoring out Neil Turner and we never got a lot of scoring out of our bench, period. Anybody that knows me knows that my game is an offensive-orientated game and we want to run, gun and have fun - that's going to be our slogan for the year.

"We need players that have the skills to not only play the game, but to have the skill and confidence to score. That is the most difficult part of the game. It's one thing to say you're a good defensive player, you play hard, its another thing to rebound, to be a good passer or a good ball handler. But the most difficult part of the game at the BBL level is to find a talented young player who can step on the court and score and score consistently.

"For example, if he averages ten minutes a game, is it going to be ten minutes a night where one night he gets 10 points and the next three nights he gets you no points? We think Guy Renton has got tremendous offensive capabilities. That he can go out there and score."

The 6'7" forward who was born in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, also fits the most important criteria on Mims' summer recruiting list.

"He came to me and said, 'Coach, I'd really like to be in the BBL again, play for you, play for the Riders and have one more chance at proving that I can make a career at the game of basketball'," Mims recalled. "That shows me hunger and that's a pre-requisite for Billy Mims from players this year. I think that Guy Renton, after stepping away from it for a couple of years, has now realised how badly he wants to be back in the game at the professional level. That hunger is exactly what we are looking for to achieve success this year."