Basketball On The Internet.

BASKETBALL in Australia and specifically South Australia has lost another great servant with the death last Thursday of former Adelaide Lightning owner Vince Marino.

Opinions on the straight-shooting 62-year-old vary wildly, but without his support, huge financial commitment and love for the Lightning, Adelaide would long ago have ceased to boast a WNBL presence.

To me, Marino was a sharp contrast of personality traits, a no BS guy who shot from the hip - which is something I've always personally appreciated in my dealings with occasionally disingenuous sportspeople - but also one who hid his deep emotional attachment to his WNBL club.

It may have been an emotional attachment which started as a desire to keep a semi-pro women's basketball team in Adelaide, then morphed into a conduit for his daughter Angela's career but in the sometimes bitter end, he came to fully understand what Lightning meant to South Australia.

Not sure when that last part happened but in those last few years of Peter Buckle, Rich Dickel and Jeremi Moule at the helm, Marino wanted nothing more than success for Adelaide's WNBL team.

He shelled out a lot of dollars to try and achieve it too, but recreating the success of the 2008 championship remained out of reach.

I saw the tears too, at his frustration and anguish Basketball SA and BA had sat on their collective hands for months even after he formally had handed in the Lightning licence.

He never wanted to see the mad scramble that followed and had hoped to inform his players of a smooth transition to new ownership as 2014-15 concluded.

The popular perception of Vince as some rich dude owning a WNBL plaything for the benefit of his daughter should have faded by the time he had spent his second million dollars on keeping an elite team afloat in Adelaide.

He claimed from the time he bought the team for $113,000 in 2006 until he surrended the licence for the end of 2014-15, he had spent $4million on the team.

Truthfully? That was a very conservative estimate.

Marino was a self-made millionaire who came to Australia at a time when opportunity existed for any migrant who wanted to work his butt off.

He didn't suffer fools gladly and occasionally let the aggravations of receiving no assistance of consequence from BSA or even stadium managements, get the better of him.

The PC brigade couldn't handle his blunt truths while others never forgave him for sacking coach Chris Lucas back in his second year of Lightning ownership.

LIGHTNING LEGENDS: From left, FIBA Hall of Famer, four-time Lightning championship and 2006 Opals World Champion coach Jan Stirling, Vince Marino, triple Olympian Laura Hodges, retiring WNBL superstars Jenni Screen and Jess Foley, with Vince's wife Caterina earlier this year.

Marino never pretended he wasn't flawed. But he didn't apologise for it either.

His nine-year commitment to keeping WNBL basketball in Adelaide should never be forgotten, or the fact he brought players such as Suzy Batkovic to the city, and brought home players such as Abby Bishop and Laura Hodges.

I know I will miss his immediately identifiable phone calls that always opened with: "VinceMarinoHelloBoti" running as one word.

And the insights and truths he shared.

Vince leaves a wife and four daughters, a business he started and a city he loved, in Whyalla.

May he finally rest in peace and his true legacy recognised.

Online

News Corp story at: http://bit.ly/1QhdpQ0