| A crash course in Dutch W-Basketball |
Author: Henk Wals
Date: October 2, 2005
A crash course in Dutch W-Basketball
Realizing most US-citizens know as much about the Netherlands as we know about, let's say, Wyoming or Delaware, we thought it might be useful to give some more information on the Netherlands, Dutch women's basketball and the ProBuild Lions organization. After all it's nice to know in what kind of surroundings your daughter, sister, friend or ex teammate ends up after taking the big leap across the ocean.
To begin with, the Netherlands - or Holland, as it is often called - is a small but crowded country with a population of 15 million covering a surface just as large as lake Erie. It's almost just as wet too, because large parts of the Netherlands lay beneath the sea level and we tend to have some really rainy seasons here. We Dutch like to think of ourselves as tolerant, open-minded and internationally orientated. True or not, cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam are just as culturally mixed as LA or New York and most Dutch people speak English, a little French and some German.
The ProBuild Lions Basketball Organization is situated in Landsmeer, a small and green suburban village with 10.000 inhabitants just north of the capital Amsterdam. By bus it takes you twenty minutes to get to the centre of the city, by car usually somewhat longer because of the traffic jams. But most people prefer to go to work by bike, one of the most popular means of transport in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately basketball is not a big sport in Holland. As in most countries outside the US soccer is the only thing that really counts. You can watch it on television 24 hours a day, if you like. And then we Dutch have this strange fondness of speed skating, a sport in which we are as world dominating as the English are in cricket, or the USA used to be in basketball during the 20th century.
Unlike the US, European sport competitions are not integrated in the school system. If you want to take up a sport, you have to join a club, a private organization that has to finance itself through club dues and fundraising. Most clubs are member of a national association responsible for organizing leagues and competitions. Within a club, teams are organized by gender, age and skill level. The ProBuild Lions Basketball Club for example consists of 260 members and 22 teams, ranging from youth teams in the age of 8-10 to recreational teams of veterans in their forties or fifties. After the first men's team comes the second men's team, the third, and so on.
The ProBuild Lions Basketball Club was founded in 1972 as the Landslake Lions Basketball Club. "Landslake" is sort of an English translation of "Landsmeer", the domicile of the organization. Practising an American sport, the founders felt the club needed an English name. In the course of its history the name of the club changed a few times, depending on which company was the main sponsor. Since 2001 the club is sponsored by ProBuild, a construction company of industrial buildings. The showpiece of the club is the first ladies team. In 1993 it advanced to the highest level, the first division (eredivisie, in Dutch). Since 1996 the team holds a winning record and in 2001 the Lions won the national championship.
The first division consists of ten to twelve teams, which will be battling each other weekly, mostly on Saturday nights, from October 15th until April. After the regular season eight teams advance to the playoffs. In addition to the regular competition the Dutch Cup Competition is being held from October through March. It's a kind of play off system played in four rounds. If you lose, you're out. The finals are broadcast on national television.
Dutch women's basketball is not a professional undertaking. Most players have daily jobs or are still at school or college. Board members, managers and coaches are not professionally employed either. Most of the work - like maintaining this website - is done on a voluntary basis and without payment.
The ProBuild Lions' first ladies team went through a rebuilding process after the 2000-2001-championship team dissolved almost completely due to retiring or career moves. In the 2003-2004 season the Lions hired a new head coach, Brian Benjamin (Paramaribo, Surinam, 1973), who finished his playing career the year before and coached the second ladies team in the 2002-2003 season. Benjamin had a successful first season on the highest level, coaching the Lions to the semi finales of the play offs and reaching the finals of the Dutch Cup Competition. His peers and the players of the Dutch competition elected Brian Benjamin as coach of the year. Lions' Slowakian forward Zuzana Sakova made the Dutch all-star team, averaging 17 points per game.
In the 2004-2005 season the Lions finished 3rd in the regular competition, and were eliminated in the semi-finals of the play-offs. Forward Rhona McKenzie and guard Kristen Green both made the all-star team, and McKenzie was elected MVP of the Dutch competition.
In the summer of 2005 ProBuild expanded the coaching staff, hiring Croatian Laki Lakner as a co-coach next to Brian Benjamin. Together with the second team's coach Robin Hollander, trainer René Wormhoudt, manager Henk Wals and team-assistant Jan Jannes they form the technical staff in the 2005-2006 season. Rhona McKenzie decided to persue a career in Luxembourg and Lakner and Benjamin started to rebuild the team, waiving guards Jildis Pronk and Kristen Green and forwards Rachel Witkamp, Nieke van der Zee and Miriam Benjamins. Several new players were signed, of whom the most conspicuous were center Dena Williams (Bradley University), forward Sharon Bos, guard Belinda Bos, guard Amanda Davidson (University of Indianapolis) and guard Tanya Bröring, who made the all-star team last season and is a member of the Dutch National Team.
Questions? Don't hesitate to send an e-mail!
The Landsmeer Sport Centre, the Indoor Centrum Landsmeer (ICL)
You can also look at the series of pictures local photographer Cees Hartman has put together in a photo-tour of Landsmeer and het Ilperveld, a wildlife area adjacent to Landsmeer.
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