Hawks History - John Gardiner
My playing career was in the Eastern States, in Newcastle, New South Wales and I was fortunate to represent Australia at the 1964 (Tokyo) and 1968 (Mexico) Olympics. I was also selected to captain the Australian team for the 1970 World Championships in Yugoslavia.
 
In 1979 I became the Chief Commissioner of the National Basketball League (NBL) and was part of the NBL establishment. In coming to Western Australia and becoming part of Basketball WA in the early 1980’s, I was asked to establish a state league.
 
Following several years of negotiation and development, in conjunction with the Clubs, the state league of WA (SBL) was established in 1989, and I have been the Chief Commissioner for the past 25 years. The SBL is regarded as one of the leading state leagues in Australia.
 
In 1987 I was an Assistant Coach to the Perth Wildcats when they reached their first Grand Final. In the same year, I was coach of the WA under 20 men’s team, which won the first ever under 20 title for WA.
 
With four sons who played basketball, I soon became an active coach at City Beach and Scarborough City Hawks. I became the Head Coach of the men’s team from the mid 1980’s. I have coached the Hawks in over 550 SBL games and we were able to win five championships in that time.
 
The 1994 championship Hawks included Pete Hansen, Chris Carroll, CJ Bruton, Scott Harkess and Ryan Gardiner - who all went on to play NBL with the Perth Wildcats and were the forerunners of many Hawks players to start at that level.
 
We played in five consecutive SBL championship finals from 2001 to 2005, losing to Lakeside in overtime in 2005, after winning four titles from 2001 to 2004. A highlight of these championships was the 2002 and 2003 season when we won with all Australian and in the main, Hawks developed players.
 
I have been the Hawks Director of Coaching for the past 25 years. The club honoured me with Life Membership in 2004 and my fondest memories of the ‘Hawks Family’ are of the players, coaches, club officials and volunteers who have made this club one of the leaders in WA basketball.