Basketball On The Internet.

THE greatest threat to the future growth and blossoming of the WNBL is not AFLW, netball, the Matildas or any lack of mainstream acceptance. It is the league's own sexist agenda which purports to equalise a gender imbalance but instead ignores the very basic rule of professional sport.

And that is when a club has an owner, or a management, investors or sponsors sinking big bucks into it, they have every right to insist the best available people are running the show, regardless of gender.

Only a very blinkered observer would have failed to notice that since the WNBL had its facelift and new direction initiated by the Denholm-Kestelman-BA ownership consortium, that the push for greater female representation in all facets of the league has been overwhelming.

Not only is that fine but it is a noble and possibly ultimately achievable goal.

But a GOAL is what it should be, NOT an agenda.

It is professional sport which means there is money to be invested, regained, reinvested, or lost. No investor is seeking the last category which is why pro sports has to have the best people available for every job within it, again, regardless of gender.

And that means selections based on ability, selections based solely on merit. It should be anything but a magic carpet ride based on gender.

There are eight WNBL clubs. Should it be a goal of a women's league to have eight female head coaches, three female refs per game, a whole scorer's bench comprised of females?

Certainly. Why not? Women have been down-trodden, hitting the glass ceiling, denied equal pay for equal work for as long as most of us can remember. It's been a disgrace. As the great Rachael Sporn once astutely observed: "Women need to work twice as hard (as men) to earn half the recognition."

But are we to assume absolutely nothing has changed in the past 30-40 years or that going to an extreme in the other direction can now somehow rectify years of injustice? 

Those of us who are diehard WNBL fans in fact actually should be quite proud.

The WNBL launched in 1981 and if anything, it has been the standard-bearer for recognising the strengths women bring to any role. Kay McFarlane was coaching North Adelaide Rockets in the league's inaugural season and every other team had at least one female assistant coach.

In the history of the WNBL, three coaches stand-out as the league's all-time greats. Guess what? Two of them are women, as anyone not named Denholm or Kestelman can tell you.

(For any others who also cannot, they are Tom Maher, Carrie Graf and Jan Stirling).

Some of our greatest NBL and national coaches started in the WNBL or by coaching elite women's teams - try a few names you might know such as Brian Goorjian, Guy Molloy, Rob Beveridge, Steve Breheny. I could go on but the point is should they not have received their chances because they are men?

Here in Adelaide, the Lightning have a long and rich history of having female head coaches, from Stirling to Vicki Daldy and on. The club's past three head coaches (excluding interims) were and are women. 

Sydney Flames have just reappointed Renae Garlepp, though the shroud of mystery under which Guy Molloy was shuffled off remains a 2025-26 blemish. That's no reflection on Garlepp at all.

She, like Kristi Harrower at Southside Flyers, carries the hopes of many of us as to what the future may hold.

In Adelaide, the interstate decision to install largely unknown Kerryn Mitchell as the club's fourth coach in the 12 months after the dismissal of Nat Hurst - her assistant Matt Clarke was interim before Scott Ninnis held the reins ahead of Mitchell - was controversial.

But long-suffering Lightning fans were prepared to give her and the new regime the benefit of the doubt and, handed a pedestrian squad largely comprised of NBL1 quality players, she did a stunningly amazing job in taking them to a 3-4 record. And that was despite losing import Serena Sundell to a season-ending injury.

Adelaide's epic overtime win in front of a sold-out raucous home crowd over a Geelong which thumped it at home was an early season high point. Until she was unceremoniously sacked in the wake of it!

No evidence of any sort was presented to support that horrific and ill-conceived decision and in trying to defend it, the club came across as amateurish, immature and naive. 

Again the club's interstate saviours told us it was for the best, installing another untried coach few outside Queensland even knew of in Aja Parham-Ammar.

Adelaide is 3-12 under her. How does that stack up against 3-4?

Was she the right choice? Well, she is female and that's where the league (which currently still owns the Lightning) is getting it woefully wrong.

If Parham-Ammar was the best candidate for the role, then no-one would quibble. But who were the others? Were there any? Many would have been happy to see Shelley Gorman or Kristen Veal on the list for example. Or why not Joey Wright? But was the decision to axe Mitchell more about personalities than merit?

Merit is the ONLY basis on which a person should win a professional head coaching role. Not to fill some quota, or satisfy a disproportionate past where females genuinely were hard done by.

Molloy, a championship-winning coach is gone and few truly know why.

At least one other male coach had a club leaning on him mid-season so it too could push a female agenda before it backed off in the aftermath of the Mitchell, Molloy moves.

The point isn't that the WNBL does not have sufficient female involvement at its highest levels or if the choice came down between two equally qualified candidates - one a woman, one a man - that choosing the female would be the right option. In that instance, yes, back the female.

The question is would the league be better without championship-winners Shannon Seebohm, Kennedy Kereama, Chris Lucas and Paul Goriss, or soon-to-be championship-winner Ryan Petrik?

If the answer is no, then once again let's return to the premise that pro sports needs the best candidates in the top roles regardless of their sex.

The league's gender agenda has the potential to wreak havoc when its desire for greater female participation should remain its goal, not its sole purpose.