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Light at the end of the tunnel
TweetTHERE appears to be Lightning at the end of the tunnel with several key developments yesterday suggesting there yet may be life in the Adelaide WNBL outfit.
With Adelaide's plight and $150,000 shortfall crisis out in the public arena, the community and corporate sector have been rallying, prompting a deadline extension from Basketball Australia.
It had been close-of-business yesterday but was extended into next week to give the Lightning a chance to nail down a few very promising leads.
Why wasn't all this done months ago?
Great question and one BasketballSA will duck until the cattle wander homeward.
The extension gave the state's NBL club, the Adelaide 36ers, a chance to also rally, the Sixers donating 10% of every membership sold for the 2015-16 season to their sister team.
In conjunction with the Australian Sports Foundation, Lightning consultant Mark Williamson also will have a donation site online on Monday, the club already promised $10,000 by members of the public.
Too little too late?
Maybe not.
A lot of fingers and toes are crossed and the search for a new coach also underway, Jeremi Moule no longer part of the equation.
Having achieved its greatest successes under Jan Stirling, there is a line of thinking that has 2008 Championship coach Vicki Valk and the exceptional Tracy York as leading candidates.
York has assistant-coached in several 36ers NBL regimes, including working with Joey Wright and Marty Clarke so she's seen the best and the worst. York also was the first female to coach a men's team in SA's Premier League, steering Woodville Warriors and North Adelaide Rockets.
She has been a Lightning assistant coach as well.
(Sam Woosnam also would have been in there as a possibility but Lightning's 2008 Championship captain, who playing-coached West Adelaide Bearcats to the 2007 SA title before taking up a bench role head coaching in the SEABL - has just had a baby.)
Valk led Norwood Flames from the doldrums to become an SA powerhouse, coaching four Championships from six Grand Finals between 1995-2001.
David Ingham's name and Mike McKay's also have been mentioned, though Valk and York are the stand-out contenders.
Both are currently working in the Premier League.
Then comes the job of putting together a team while, HOPEFULLY, BasketballSA and/or the 36ers start planning for the future, with pontificating about aligning with Universty of SA and/or membership-driven funding finally leaving the realm of wishful thinking to become a sustainable reality.
Online
How yesterday unfolded at News Corp:
