GUEST SPEAKER-December 21
Rotary members welcomed guest speaker Stu Julius General Manager of the KW Titans professional basketball club who provided an overview of the National Basketball League of Canada.
Julius had previous basketball experience as a coach of the Women's basketball programs at Lakehead University and locally with Wilfrid Laurier University.
In the National Basketball League of Canada, Stu served in a leadership role with the Brampton franchise in 2015, and was an assistance coach in 2016 with the London Lightning, where his son Kyle was and is the Head Coach.
The NBLC is entering its 6th successful season, with two five-team divisions - Central in Ontario with London, Niagara, Orangeville and Windsor plus the expansion KW Titans. In the Maritimes, the Atlantic Division is comprised of teams in Halifax, Moncton, PEI (Charlottetown) and Saint John plus a new expansion team in Cape Breton.
The Titans home venue is the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium and the team will play twenty home games, starting with the inaugural game on Monday (Boxing Day) evening Dec. 26 when Titans host the Orangeville A's. The regular season runs until the end of April, followed by playoffs.
GM Julius then introduced Coach Serge Langis who has multiple years experience in the league, most recently with the Moncton Miracles team. He shared that the Titans team will be speedy and provide entertaining basketball.
Players in the league are full-time professionals who are "on the court" every day. The Titans range in age from 23 -31 have a variety of backgrounds in playing experience, from NCAA schools in the US, and many have played abroad in professional leagues throughout the world. Each team must have four Canadians on the roster.
Following a brief Q&A, the guests were appropriately thanked by Rotarian Leo Tobi.
