Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Andrew Gaze Story A Kid A Ball A Dream by Andrew Gaze The Andrew Gaze Story: A Kid A Ball A Dream by Andrew Gaze. Andrew Gaze Biographical Information. Son of Australian basketball stalwart Lindsay Gaze, Andrew played in the NBL at age 18, before playing a season of U.S. college basketball at Seton Hall, where he led his team to the 1989 NCAA finals, losing in overtime to Michigan. He trialled with the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics, but was not offered a contract. He returned to Australia and began a stellar career in the NBL, named Rookie of the year in 1984. His incredible shooting skills saw him the top scorer in the league for a total of 14 seasons. A poor athlete, Gaze combined a great three-point shot with an equally good pass. A crowd favourite, one of Gaze's trademark plays was a pass to American import Lanard Copeland for an alley oop. Playing under his father with the Melbourne Tigers, Gaze led the team to two titles and were perpetual finalists. Gaze also excelled at the international arena, playing in a total of five Olympic Games with the Boomers and leading them to a best performance of the fourth, at the 1996 Summer Olympics. He was selected as flagbearer for the Australian team at the opening ceremony at the Sydney 2000 Games. He is the scoring record holder in Olympic competition, and second-highest scorer of all-time in World Championship play. Gaze had another short stint in the NBA in lockout-shortened 1998-99 with the San Antonio Spurs, but received very little court time and was injured for the latter part of the season. He received a championship ring after the Spurs won the 1999 NBA title, although he was left off the playoff roster. Whilst Gaze never had a steady NBA career, unlike Chicago Bulls center Luc Longley, he is still regarded by many Australians as their best-ever male basketballer (Lauren Jackson is arguably the best female player in the world). After the Sydney Olympics, Gaze retired from international competition, but continued to play in the NBL. On May 12, 2005, he announced his retirement from the game after 612 games in the NBL and 20 years as a professional basketballer. Soon after, he released his autobiography, 'A Kid, A Ball, A Dream', co-authored with Grantly Bernard. He is known for his gentle, unflappable nature, prematurely grey hair, and unwillingness to slam dunk. Andrew is married to Melinda. They have four children. Today, Gaze has carved out a career as a media personality, appearing on commercials for Dodo Internet and commentating NBL basketball matches for SEN 1116. The Snake is a Yang, and is the Sixth sign of the Chinese horoscope. The forgotten story of . Shane Heal v the Dream Team. Heading into Australia’s 1996 exhibition match against the reigning Olympic champions, peroxide-blond guard Shane ‘The Hammer’ Heal and his Boomers team-mates were excited but not daunted by the prospect of taking on the NBA’s best. “I think it was a defining sort of a moment,” Heal tells Guardian Australia 17 years after a fiery confrontation that remains the first thing basketball fans want to discuss when they meet the veteran of four Olympic campaigns. The Australians, a blue-collar line-up by international standards, approached the game with respect for their opponents but didn’t fear them. Heal recalls “we’d seen other teams getting photos taken with them and autographs before and after games and things like that. We said that wasn’t the Australian way and we certainly weren’t handling the game like that.” Heal would finish the Olympic tune-up with 28 points and shoot a remarkable 8-from-13 from three-point range, many of them a remarkable distance out from the line, but it was his confrontation with the notorious Barkley that captured the attention of the media and fans alike. Late in the first half and growing in confidence, Heal found himself open on the wing and released a shot for his fourth three-pointer of the game. Barkley arrived late, aggressively undercutting Heal and sending him sprawling to the floor in front of the Australian bench. “The thing with Barkley and I, it was just a dirty play. You just wouldn’t expect someone to make such a dirty play against someone that’s in the air, anywhere in the world,” says Heal. “He just took my legs out and I landed on my back. It was just a really dirty play … he just ran straight through my legs. You definitely don’t expect that and you don’t expect it from an NBA superstar.” Undaunted by the height and weight differential – his opponent stood six inches taller – Heal chased the American star back down the court, letting fly with a volley of verbal barbs, and bumped chests with Barkley. “When I got up and gave him a few choice words I remember him looking down and he said ‘What did you say?’ I didn’t know whether he couldn’t understand the accent or he couldn’t believe what I’d just called him.” The tough-talking Barkley would later conclude: “He’s a talkative little fellow. I told him that if I don’t take that off Americans I’m definitely not going to take it off foreigners.” Heal and his team-mates acknowledged they were playing against the world’s best but refused to back down from confrontation when necessary. “ I guess the Australian way is that we weren’t going to kiss their arse – we were going there to test ourselves against the best. We weren’t going to treat them any differently than we did anybody else. We had respect for them but we certainly weren’t going to bow to them.” As stunned as the Aussies were by the physical nature of the clash, not even Heal expected the sight of Barkley mimicking a gunshot at him as the teams went to their huddle. “ I was going from one end of the court to our bench and he was going from the other end to his bench and we ran into each other again and we grabbed each other by the singlets and he was a big man, mate, he was a very big man. I’m very lucky he didn’t hit me because I’d still be asleep today I reckon.” Not for the last time, the match officials had to intervene. Boomers captain Andrew Gaze recently remembered the clash. “Shane, I think in the emotion of the situation and also just trying to make a statement to the rest of the group to say, ‘Hey, we don’t back down to anyone. I don’t care who you are or what your reputation is, we play it on its merits.’ You could almost see Charles [think] like, ‘What is this little peroxide-haired bloke doing?’” In turn, Heal recalls Gaze’s attempts to halt the bubbling animosity, “I remember Andrew trying to calm [the Dream Team] down and try and calm us down, he was like the international peacekeeper. I remember him being hurt by the fact that they were so angry, but we really didn’t take a backward step.” Asked if his treatment of Heal was a sign of respect, Barkley replied: “I try to treat people equal. I try to hit everybody, and in that way I’m very consistent.” “He was definitely consistent,” laughs Heal. All the while, Heal had been on the receiving end of a trash-talking masterclass from the Dream Team guard and future NBA hall-of-famer Gary Payton. “ The amount of rubbish that I listened to from Gary Payton about what he was going to do to me after the game and all the rest of it, it was just laughable. No-one spoke as much as what he did, that’s for sure.” On a promotional tour of Australia later in the year, Payton would admit that he was looking forward to squaring off against the NBA-bound guard and that he’d eat Heal for lunch, mockingly concluding: “It is wonderful for Australia that a short guy can make it to the NBA.” “We certainly didn’t expect that it was going to be as physical and that we were going to have to stand up for ourselves like we did either,” says Heal. “The fact that they could be frustrated by an Australian team coming over with no NBA players like that, it was a little bit embarrassing I would have thought if you’re an American.” The US media were decidedly unimpressed by the antics on display. Sports Illustrated singled Barkley out: “It’s hard to imagine an Olympic athlete who adheres less to the Olympic ideal than Barkley”. He was unflinching in his response. “We’re going to defend ourselves. If the American press wants to make us the bad guys, so be it.” Though Heal wishes fans would remember the game for his three-point spree and not the fight, his analysis of his own performance is matter of fact. “That was my role on the Australian team. Andrew [Gaze] didn’t have a great one in that game so I needed to try and be able to put some more points on the board for us.” “ A lot of the time when you look back on games you didn’t realise you were [shooting from] that far out, especially when you’ve got momentum and adrenalin and everything.