Why Perth still feels like home for Rob Beveridge

• Rob Beveridge coached the Perth Wildcats from 2009-13, winning the 2010 NBL championship
• Trevor Gleeson would go on to lead the Wildcats to five more titles from 2014-2020
• Beveridge remains in Perth living with his family while serving in numerous basketball roles

When Rob Beveridge arrived in Perth to coach the Wildcats almost 17 years ago, he knew he wanted it to be his home and while he didn’t get to "drive the Ferrari" he built to multiple NBL championships, it's still where he's settled.

The Wildcats were at the crossroads following the 2008-09 NBL season, having not won a championship in almost a decade and having just been bundled out on their home floor with Corey 'Homicide' Williams celebrating wildly and ironically, current coach John Rillie shooting the lights out.

That's when Beveridge was appointed coach and he brought future legend Damian Martin with him, brought on board now games record holder Jesse Wagstaff, welcomed Kevin Lisch to the NBL, and went on to have instant success with the 2010 championship.

Their next three seasons were all ended by the New Zealand Breakers firstly without Shawn Redhage in the semi finals of 2011, and then in the Grand Finals of 2012 and 2013 with Lisch and/or Martin both either playing hurt or ruled out through injury on both occasions.

Suddenly after that 2013 grand final loss, Beveridge and the Wildcats parted ways, but the building blocks were all there for success.

Success sure did follow under the coaching of Trevor Gleeson with two imports on board which never happened at the start of any Beveridge season with them going on to win championships in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020.

Watching the team he built thrive

With imports Jermaine Beal and James Ennis on board, the Wildcats achieved immediate success with that 2014 championship with Gleeson at the helm as coach but there were all the remnants of the team that Beveridge had built.

Redhage, Martin, Matt Knight, Tom Jervis, Wagstaff and Greg Hire were all key members of that team.

Beveridge knew there wasn’t much he could do about the way things ended, but he was chuffed with the acknowledgement he received from so many people after the championship triumph of that 2014 team.

"After I left, yeah, they did open up the purse strings after I left and Kevin Lisch left, and I think it was a situation where the club had to do something different," Beveridge said.

"Then they bring in somebody like James Ennis and Beal in that first season after I left, and they had to do that to do something different and they had great success.

"They brought Trevor in as coach and I think I set the program up to be in really, really good shape and he just took it to another level.

"There's no doubt that I was probably more of a development type coach to build the team up, and then Trevor comes in and it's almost like he's driving a Ferrari.

"And he's an outstanding car driver and he did a wonderful job but I remember after they won that first championship, it was one of the most humbling things I've ever had happen when I literally had hundreds of people contacting me to tell me the part I played in setting that up.

"That was pretty cool to be honest that people recognised that I was part of that."

Leaving Wildcats after four seasons

While Beveridge would have loved to continue coaching the Wildcats team he had built after four seasons for a championship, three grand finals and four playoff appearances - the reality was he and management were unlikely to stop butting heads.

Once negotiations broke down with Beveridge and late owner Jack Bendat AM as well as managing director Nick Marvin, he knew the new contract was one he couldn’t accept.

"When the negotiations didn’t work out between the club and I, it was a really tough period of time and I felt like I was made out that I was money hungry and blah blah blah," Beveridge said.

"There were reports about it being my decision, but no, we wanted to stay here forever and didn’t want to go anywhere, but the negotiations were crap.

"They were absolutely shit house and it was pretty disappointing and disrespectful, and that's why I left. But I knew that I could build programs and looking at all the successful ones, it comes down to stability and I knew there were the right people at the Wildcats.

"We'd invested in the younger players and we had the right leaders with Damian Martin one of the most inspirational players that's ever played the game and he's just such a winner."

First falling in love with Perth

When Beveridge was earning his Sports Science degree at the University of Canberra with a renowned coaching component, once he realised mentor Dr Adrian Hurley OAM and good friend Guy Molloy had moved to Perth, he realised there must be something to it.

Along with wife Suellen, he spent time in Perth back in the 1990s before he ended up head coach at the NSW Institute of Sport where he started to build his legacy.

But it didn’t take long for it to become clear that Perth would want to be his eventual home.

"It probably started back in the early 90s and I always wanted to be a basketball coach, and growing up in Canberra I was fortunate to be able to study at the University of Canberra, which is one of the best sports coaching degrees you can do," Beveridge said.

"Part of that was that you get to work with the Australian Institute of Sport and I ended up getting a job there, and there some incredible mentors in particular Adrian Hurley.

"He was a mentor and father figure even though we weren’t that close, but he was that authoritarian and then I was also best mates with Guy Molloy.

"Not long after that, Adrian left to take on the Perth Wildcats job and then Guy left to be the head coach of the Perth Breakers so that showed to me if they are willing to move over to Perth, it made sense for me to follow them so I came over and it was just a great environment.

"I was doing some with the Breakers, helping with the Wildcats and being around the WAIS program, and it was just a really good feel and I was here for three years to start off with."

Coming back to Perth

While Beveridge went on to create a legacy at the NSW Institute of Sport, then the Australian Institute of Sport, before starting his NBL career at the West Sydney Razorbacks who transformed into the Sydney Spirit - returning to Perth was always high on his agenda.

"After that first stint in Perth, I had to go and create my own identity and ended up going to Brisbane and working up there for a period of time, and then got to Sydney which everyone knows the story from there," Beveridge said.

"But from that time in Perth in the early 90s, it was a really good feel and it's hard to describe what it was, but even when I started coaching in the NBL at West Sydney, every time I came back to Perth and I landed, there was just a sense of belonging and like I was back home.

"Fast forward and things went belly up in Sydney and whatever else, and the opportunity opened up at the Wildcats.

"So going from Perth in the 90s and then coming back to coach the Wildcats, it felt really comfortable and I thought I had enough experience and after what I went through at West Sydney, I felt like I could just about handle anything."

Embracing building a Wildcats team

Having done such outstanding work with the NSW Institute of Sport and then going on to coach the Australian Emus, including to the historic 2003 World Championship, Beveridge always knew he had an ability to develop talent.

That's why when he almost was given free rein to build a fresh team at the Wildcats, he wanted to do it with young players and that included rookies Jesse Wagstaff and Kevin Lisch as well as his long-term point guard Damian Martin.

The rest fell into place on that championship season headed up by Shawn Redhage with veterans Martin Cattalini and Galen Young, former NBA big man Luke Schenscher, a tenacious leader like Brad Robbins working with Martin, and the all-round talents of Stephen Weigh.

"The job at the Wildcats is a high pressure one, but it helped that I loved living here and then the club allowed me to do things the way I wanted to do things to build that team," Beveridge said.

"It really was a great situation where I could recruit guys like Damian Martin, Matty Knight, Jesse Wagstaff, Kevin Lisch and it was all about building something special here that could last for a long time.

"Financially the club was in a good position to be stable and at the time they had gone 10 years between winning championships, and there was eight players turned over the year before, and they were looking for some stability.

"My philosophy was to create something special you had to recruit the best young talent and I was in a good position to do that from my work in the national junior program. I just felt so comfortable doing that."

From rookie to games record holder

The Beveridge-Wagstaff story is a fascinating one and goes all the way back to when he was in primary school and Mr and Mrs Wagstaff were his teachers in Canberra.

Fast forward to when Beveridge was building his 2009-10 Wildcats team and Wagstaff had just graduated from Metro State University in Denver - it seemed only a natural for him to start his NBL career with the Wildcats.

Beveridge never doubted he'd be a success, but even he marvels that he's still playing almost 17 years later, is the Wildcats captain and games record holder at 519 along with being a six-time championship winner.

"I always knew he was going to be talented and have a long-term career, but this long?," Beveridge said.

"It's going on 17 years that he's been in the league and everybody knows our history where his mother and father were my teachers in primary school, and he comes from a great family and is a great person.

"He has zero ego, is the ultimate team person and he's developed his leadership even though he's a quiet leader.

"He's not the leader that will go out and be loud mouthed or score lots of points, but he's been part of a program of success from my time through to Trevor's times, and he's also a winner.

"He knows what it takes and he's the steady influence and people might question if he should retire or not, but there's the things you don't see of the court and even now when they bring him on, he still does things to help you win.

"His personality hasn’t changed at all over those 17 years and he's still someone who doesn't get fazed by anything, doesn’t get caught up in social media or what people think, he's just that great steadying influence and a big reason why the Wildcats have had such success."

Life changing moment

Perhaps since the early seasons when Beveridge was loving life at the Wildcats, there's nowhere he's coached that he enjoyed more than in the NZNBL at the Southland Sharks.

However, while there he had an accident falling from the roof of his house while attempting to be a handyman that very nearly ended his life.

He is still in pain all each day with ailments stemming from that 2022 accident, but ultimately it also was the moment he realised he wanted to stop coaching full-time and to settle back in Perth with his family.

"We went on to win a championship that first year and made a couple more grand finals, and then there was that situation after my fourth year when negotiations didn’t work out the way I wanted them to be, and it was time for me to go away," Beveridge said.

"I went and worked overseas for a number of years, then I went to New Zealand and I loved it there. That was one of the best jobs I ever had because it was a community and you were supported, and there was no pressure to win or anything like that.

"Then unfortunately I had my bad accident and that was a defining moment in my life where I pretty much coulda, woulda, shoulda died and I didn’t.

"To this day I'm still hurting with the after effects of that but I said to my wife at that time that I didn’t want to keep being a head coach, but she asked a pretty good question about what the hell we would do with our lives."

Now settling in Perth

Since last coaching in the NBL with the Hawks, Beveridge has taken on a variety of roles from New Zealand to Indonesia and even in Perth at NBL1 West teams Rockingham and Mandurah, and is currently working with the Indonesian national program.

However, Perth is home and it's hard to see it not being where he and wife Sueellen won't continue living no matter where work might take him.

"That's when we both agreed our best days were living in Perth both in the early 90s and then when we came back for those four years," Beveridge said.

"My kids grew up here and loved going to school here at Sacred Heart, and it was a family decision to come back and settle here.

"We had family in Canberra and Gold Coast, but Sue-Ellen and I decided along with the kids that we wanted to come back to Perth. Now we're back here living and it's my most favourite place to live and even if I spend time working elsewhere, Perth is home for us."