Basketball On The Internet.

IT’S done. It’s official. The NBL’s only remaining inaugural club, the Wollongong Hawks tonight guaranteed not only their future but their chances to finally prosper again.

The club’s members overwhelmingly – unanimous is pretty definitive - voted to leap into the 21st century by first changing the “company type” and installing James Spenceley as a Director.

“I am going to give everything to get the experience right,” the founder, chief executive and major shareholder of listed telecommunications company Vocus Communications promised.

This is as big a day for the Hawks as their first game as Illawarra in 1979, their 2001 NBL Championship and the club’s first salvation in 2009.

But this is more than just “salvation” with an overhaul of the operations designed to create prosperity and maintain Wollongong as one of the league’s premier NBL destinations for years to come.

The NBL’s reigning Coach of the Year, Gordie McLeod, will be back to lead the revival, although he currently is in Las Vegas at the Worldwide Invitational Camp which is running alongside the NBA’s Summer League.

“Obviously our club has been working very, very hard to stay in the competition and to stay competitive in the competition,” he said last month when news of Spenceley’s planned involvement first came to light.

“Without this opportunity, things could have been very tough for our team to continue.”

Hallelujah for the Hawks, those days are past.