Former Opals Coach heads back to Ballarat

BASKETBALL Ballarat CEO Peter Eddy has announced the return of a Ballarat coaching legend to take the reins as Director of Coaching and Head Coach of the Ballarat Miners for the next three years.

Brendan Joyce, who started his coaching with the Ballarat Miners in 1994 and in three years won two SEABL Championships before moving on to the NBL with the Wollongong Hawks, is returning to Ballarat to lead the program into the future.

Joyce has a stellar career as a coach and is one of the most successful coaches of the Australian National Basketball League. Joyce coached the Wollongong Hawks and then Gold Coast Blaze in more than 400 games, including one NBL Championship in 2001.

He also joined another former Miners Coach Brian Goorjian as an Assistant National Coach from 2001 to 2008, including for the Australian Olympic Teams in Athens in 2004, Beijing 2008 and the Commonwealth Games in 2006.

Brendan Joyce was also the Head Coach of the Australian Opals from 2013 to 2016 including the Opals Bronze medal at Turkey for the 2014 World Championships for women and at the Olympics in Rio in 2016.

Born in Melbourne, Joyce was a NBL player for 13 years before beginning coaching.

His achievements in the role as Opals Head Coach and Director of the Australian Women’s Centre of Excellence included a record three World Championship medals for U17 Gold, U19 Bronze and Opals Bronze with a 14-2 win loss record between 2013 and 2016.

Joyce brings extensive coaching and development experience at all levels of basketball to Ballarat as is enters an exciting new era as the lead Indoor Sports body in Regional Victoria and prepares to move into the new $24M Ballarat Sports & Events Centre.

Joyce has recently been working at Chisolm Sports Academy where he has been involved with the planning, development and implementation of the current curriculum.

In accepting this appointment Joyce said that he, “Looks forward to working with Ballarat’s Men and Women’s teams, the junior representative teams and with domestic clubs. I love the Ballarat community and l would be proud to represent once again this great regional community.”

“I strongly believe that nothing is more satisfying than assisting athletes, coaches, teams and organisations to achieve their goals and dreams,” he added.