Brian Kerle

From a playing career which commenced in “C” Grade club basketball with Oxley Club in 1965, Brian Kerle played with the Lang Park Club in the Brisbane “A” grade competition and from there he was recruited by Melbourne’s St. Kilda Club in June 1967. Five years later Brian was representing Australia at the Munich Olympic Games.

Brianplayed more than 100 games for Australia including at the Munich 1972 Olympics and the 1970 and 1974 World Championships. Brian was one of those players whose playing career merged smoothly into his coaching career, and it was as a coach that Brian has made his greatest impact on basketball and its people.

Brian’s senior coaching debut was with St. Kilda in 1977. He coached numerous Victorian State teams before winning the first two NBL titles in 1979-80 with St. Kilda.He passed over a near-certain third title in 1981 when he took St. Kilda to a fifth place at the World Club titles.

Brian was Assistant-coach of Australian Olympic from 1986, including 1986 World Championships in Spain, the Olympic qualifying tournament in New Zealand and the pre-Olympic tour of Europe. He returned home to Brisbane in 1984, and has coached the Bullets to four consecutive grand finals winning the title in 1985 and 1987.

He was NBL Coach of the year 1984. Brian has coached 456 NBL games, and has won 282 for a win:loss ratio of 61.8%. He was the only person to have coached in all of the first ten years of the NBL. Since leaving the competitive basketball scene, Brian has continued coaching in schools, clubs and coaching clinics throughout Queensland. He also worked at Sport and Recreation Queensland where he ran various sports programs including Thanks Ref and Deadly Sports.

Brian now combines the skills he learnt as a player, coach and business manager to developing excellence on and off the court through Brian Kerle Basketball Academy.