#186 'Paint The Town Green'

You don't have to be a basketball fan to appreciate the romanticism of the Tasmania JackJumpers franchise making the NBL grand final series in their inaugural season.

Sports' tragics have fallen for the team even though many of us had reservations about why you would call a team after a nasty biting ant that defends a matriarch to the very end.

However, and on reflection, JackJumpers makes sense. They are workers who form a colony, and are loyal to the Queen.

Fortunately, the owner of the NBL, Ukrainian born millionaire Larry Kestelman who remains a regular visitor to Tasmania and the ultimate decisionmaker regarding a Tasmanian team, provided a holistic view for start-up and, together with the board, recognised the importance of a dual name with lutruwita featuring prominently on Indigenous branding and merchandise.

But romanticism is not simply romantic by nature, rather, it is the lens through which artists view the world including emotion, nature, individualism and sentimentalisation about the past. And for those who don't follow sport but read this column, relax - there will still be something in it for you.

The scenes were pandemonium when University of Wyoming alumni Josh Adams drained a fade-away jump shot deep from the baseline under extreme defensive pressure, securing three points, and ensuring that the JackJumpers, the JJ Army, could once again gather to chant: It's Time to Defend the Island as they headed to the NBL's ultimate decider in a best of five series.

Adams was the first import signed by the new franchise. His clutch shot with seconds remaining was majestic, but for a time this shot was inconceivable.

There is a part of me that depends upon watching the same movies, reading the same books, and listening to the same music for comfort. It is a safe place where I can retreat when things don't feel quite right.

The ending doesn't change nor does the plot or the lyrics but there is always something new to find, a scene, a word, a chord progression, or a descriptive sentence, and if your concentration wanes you can always return safe in the knowledge that you know what happens. From a sporting point of view, The Natural, American Flyers, The Colour of Money, Without Limits, Invictus, and Moneyball are all favourites.

And if you add Field of Dreams and For Love of the Game, you quickly come to the realisation that Academy Award winner Kevin Costner loves sport and I have an obsessive bent for his movies.

Some of these films are based on real-life stories including the tragic death of US middle-distance runner Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits, the relationship between South African President Nelson Mandela and Springboks captain Francois Pienaar in Invictus, and the building of a World Series winning baseball team in Moneyball.

In Latin, Invictus means unconquered. Coincidently, the movie title was originally a poem by William Ernest Henley. Henley famously penned: "I am master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul".

My other favourite sporting movies follow a similar plot with a variety of twists and turns, to test the viewer's belief, before culminating in heroic sporting acts to neatly complete the rags to riches and triumph over adversity stories.

JackJumpers' guard Josh Adams should never have been able to make that shot.

At the height of his career after starring with the University of Wyoming he unexpectedly missed out at the 2016 NBA draft, but found game time in the NBA Summer Competition with the Denver Nuggets.

However, just as he had signed with Avodart Saratov in Russia, he was involved in a life-threatening car crash, fracturing his neck in the process. Adams' spent five months recovering, uncertain that he would be able to pursue his dreams of playing professionally. When Adams was a youngster, straight out of university, basketball blogs were predicting that a movie would eventually be made about him detailing his rise as a professional baller. One blog even suggested that the director should be Martin Scorsese. Adversity can strike at any time, but so can triumph. We can't control our lives so tightly to completely minimise risk, living requires balance, but we can place ourselves at the centre of improvement and doing what we believe to be right.

The JackJumpers franchise is Tasmania's new muse. Don't worry about AFL Colours Day - that's done for now - the brand mucked around for so long that they were stung. Instead, head to the socials and check out how school kids committed to Paint the Town Green in JackJumpers colours and made the AFL green with envy in the process. Now that's a movie I would watch over and over again.