After Hours

I had not moved across the country to simply occupy the CEO's chair. I wanted to build something.

Almost immediately I could see enormous potential in Perry Lakes Hawks. There was history, scale, passionate people, thousands of players and families, volunteers, coaches, referees and an established basketball community.

I could also see how much opportunity was sitting there unrealised. In a number of areas, the Association was well behind where I believed a modern sporting organisation of its size and standing could be.

Processes needed structure. Communication needed improvement. Roles needed clarity. Systems needed modernising. Commercial opportunities needed exploring. The way information was collected, presented and used could become more sophisticated.

I did not see those things as an attack on the people who had come before me. I saw opportunity.

And I became consumed by it.

My working day rarely ended when I walked out of the office. I would come home, make dinner, sit down and watch television for a while and try to switch off.

Then I would look across at the laptop.

Before long it would be open again.

An hour would disappear. Then another. Sometimes several.

I would research what other sporting organisations were doing, work through financial information, develop structures, review processes, write proposals, build presentations, analyse staffing requirements and think about how we could improve the experience for everyone who interacted with Perry Lakes Hawks.

Because I was living alone, there was nobody telling me it was time to put the laptop away. So often I did not.

The apartment became an extension of the CEO's office.

Dinner. Television. Laptop. Work. Sleep. Repeat.

Nobody had ordered me to work those hours. I did it because I could see what the Association could become.

That is important to everything that followed. When I eventually stood my ground on issues of ethics, governance and what I believed were the best interests of the Association, it was not because I did not care about Perry Lakes Hawks.

It was precisely because I cared so much.

Perhaps the best evidence of my commitment was not what happened during office hours. It was what happened afterwards: night after night in a small apartment in Perth, with my family 2,700 kilometres away, the television playing in the background and a laptop glowing in front of me, still trying to make the Association better.