A new basketball competition was launched in Dubbo on Sunday but it is one which goes much further than just points on a scoreboard.
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The Indigenous Community Basketball League (ICBL) was launched in eight locations around the country on the weekend, with Dubbo selected as the host of the NSW competition.
The ICBL is part of the Indigenous Basketball Australia (IBA), a program founded by Australian NBA star Patty Mills, and it was created to make a difference in the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders under the age of 14.
The opening ceremony at Sportsworld on Sunday had a focus on culture and the IBA's Head of Basketball, Tyson Demos, was thrilled to see teams from Dubbo (Gugaa), Gilgandra (Dulan), Orange (Biladurang), and Wellington and Narromine (Maliyan) ready to take the opportunity in front of them.
"We want to make a difference in these kids' lives and give them the best possible chance to be successful at whatever they want to do," he said.
"Whether that's football, basketball, or being a teacher. If we can set them up with skills to be successful in their life then that's one of our main goals."
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The competitions will run for eight rounds and prior to each set of fixtures there will be inspiration and motivational sessions run for all the players involved.
"And we've teamed up with local organisations to come in and help facilitate those sessions, which will have diff themes each week," Demos added.
"From cultural, to education, and health and wellbeing."
Mills also spoke to all participants via video message and spoke of his pride in seeing roughly 1000 juniors take part in the program's first year.
He also spoke about the importance of culture and for the young players in these regional communities to never give up on that culture or their hopes and dreams.
"IBA is founded on culture and culture is identity and all the values that make up culture is how you become proud of your identity," the San Antonio Spurs star said.
"Not thinking that you have to leave your identity at the door for you to achieve your dreams because all of you are deadly and no one can ever take that away from you."
Planning any new competition is easy and a mountain of work was involved in setting up a national competition which involves much more than a few matches each weekend.
Demos said he was immensely proud to be on hand to see it launched and heaped praise on the Dubbo tournament organiser, Kimm Naden, and her team.
"It's been a long process over last six months to get to this point but in this NSW region to have Kimm lead the operation side of things as regional coordinator has been massive," Demos said.
"She's done an exceptional job with her team and Naden family to get to this point. It's exciting and everyone is pumped.
"I'm so proud to be involved. I grew up playing in NSW and you understand barriers regional kids have so I wish I was 12 again to be part of the program.
"Obviously unbelievably proud of where we're at but it's not just about basketball."
The large Indigenous population in the western area played a role in Dubbo being granted hosting rights for the NSW competition, but it wasn't only because of that.
As Demos stated, there is always a challenge for athletes in regional and remote areas to get access to top competition and development opportunities and this competition is designed to help change that.
"There's an unbelievable amount of talent that's untapped out here and if we can provide a pathway that's the first step," Demos added.