Double-figure haul delights Fab Flournoy
Apr 11 2009 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal
NEWCASTLE Eagles may have become the first team in 15 years to retain the BBL championship, but it was taking the club’s trophy haul into double figures which most had player-coach Fabulous Flournoy purring.
The title was clinched with an 87-70 victory over Scottish Rocks, three games before the end of the regulation season.
Trey Moore led the way with 23 points as Flournoy’s men recorded a 16th consecutive win, one short of yet another club record.
It was the Eagles 10th piece of BBL silverware since breaking their duck in the 2004-05 Trophy final. Since then, they have accumulated another two Trophies, three Play-Offs, a BBL Cup and now three Championships. “It’s a huge accomplishment for the club, a huge achievement,” said Flournoy, who has been in charge for all 10 victory parades. “It represents so many different things on so many different levels. It’s not so much the fact we’ve won a trophy, it’s the establishment of the club.
“We’re trying to establish an identity as a club, as a team, in the community and the North East. That’s what sets us apart from every other club, the fact we are trying to do things the right way.”
Flournoy was keen to stress last night’s success was just the latest chapter in a fairytale storyline that has been years in the making.
“In my first two years as coach, we were there or thereabouts,” he said. “It just slowly built and the foundations were put together. Once that solidified, that’s when the first trophy came. Once we got over the line for the first time, we began to understand the process we had to go through on and off the court. We understood what it took to be successful at a time when a lot of other clubs were just feeding money in.”
A repeat of the clean sweep of three years ago is impossible thanks to the BBL Cup semi-final defeat to Everton Tigers, but three out of four for the season is still on if they come out on top in the play-offs.
“That the Eagles have kept up such a relentless pursuit of silverware at a time when others would have been sated is perhaps the New Yorker’s greatest achievement.
“Next season we start from zero,” he insisted. “A lot of people say when you climb the mountain there’s no way to go but down. Once we got to the top of the mountain, instead of falling, we climb down the mountain and start the process again. We always build from ground zero. We enjoy the success for the moment, then put it to one side and start again. We treat everything like it’s the first and last time you’re ever going to do it.”
Managing director Paul Blake is hopeful of bringing most, if not all, of this season’s roster back to Tyneside when contract negotiations re-open in the summer. That stability, says Flournoy, is crucial.
“The important thing is we’re not changing players left, right and centre so the fans don’t know who they have from one year to the next,” he stressed. “It means when we get new guys in we can teach them the roles and, more importantly, the history of the club. That passes from one generation to the next.”
