Basketball still big for former Bobcat all-Canadian
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/02/2015 (4122 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
After spending 27 years playing basketball, Joey Vickery has finally hung up his sneakers.
Next stop? A trip to the Manitoba High School Athletics Association Hall of Fame.
The 47-year-old former Brandon University Bobcats all-Canadian guard decided to retire as a player after guiding the Mattersburg Rocks to their third straight Austrian championship last year, and it was his time at Mattersburg that made the transition away from playing so much easier. Vickery played, coached and was the youth coaching co-ordinator for the club, which made his decision to end his career and begin working with Split Second Basketball — a new technical skill training organization in Vancouver — a lot easier.
“I finished a very good year last year and was happy with it,” Vickery said from Vancouver. “We three-peated with the club that I started up with my friends in Austria. It was going well, but I wanted to retire and I had a very good offer here with him to go partners and we’re running a good program, based on what we’ve heard.”
“I really enjoy developing kids and showing them they don’t have to be seven feet tall to get the most out of basketball,” he continued.
Vickery had a phenomenal career, in university, with the national team and professionally in Europe. The 5-foot-9 Winnipegger was a first-team all-Canadian with the Bobcats in both of his seasons in the Wheat City — 1989-90 and 1990-91 — and was an all-star at the national championship tournament in his first campaign.
Vickery also spent 10 years with the Canadian men’s basketball program, appearing in both the 1994 and 1998 FIBA world championships as well as the 1995 and 1997 Tournament of Americas. Of those 10 years, three were centralized with the program.
His professional career included stops in Romania, France, Spain and Austria, and he was named MVP in each country.
While he was on the court, it never sunk in what he was accomplishing, but it’s starting to now as he hears the stories told about him to the kids in the basketball academy, and he’s appreciating his career more now that he’s being inducted into the Manitoba High School Athletics Association’s Hall of Fame in May.
“I was talking to my friend the other day and he’s telling the kids about the two world championships and I’m like, yeah,” Vickery said. “I just took them as games and didn’t really grasp the whole thing. I was caught up in the moment. I just took everything as it came and wanted to compete and play.
“When he starts telling the kids about me, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I was top 12 in the country for 10 years and wow I guess I did do that.’ I just never realized what I was accomplishing at that time and now it’s really nice to reflect back and be in the hall of fame.”
Vickery, who is also a member of the Manitoba Basketball Hall of Fame and the BU Bobcats Wall of Fame, is proud to have his name etched in stone and to leave a legacy behind. He’s also extremely proud to go into the high school hall of fame with Dave Guss, his high school basketball coach. Vickery credits Guss with giving him such a long career in the sport and the desire to give to back to the game as well.
“It’s fitting because he’s such an important part of my basketball career,” said Vickery, who is unable to get away from the academy to attend the induction ceremony in Winnipeg on May 23. “He had a great system from junior high to his varsity high school program. He was so good at coaching the fundamentals that I think I had a handful of (travelling calls) in my life.”
“That’s why I like doing these programs with the kids and showing them the fundamentals and how important they are,” Vickery added. “I don’t think a 5-foot-9 Winnipeg boy could play that long if he wasn’t so flushed in the fundamentals and being able to execute them all these years.”
Former Brandonite and ex-NFLer Israel Idonije, a graduate of the Vincent Massey Vikings program, will also be inducted into the 2015 high school Hall of Fame class this spring.
» cjaster@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @jasterch