Andrew Gaze (b. 1965), basketballer and coach, was born into a prominent basketballing family. His father Lindsay coached the Melbourne Tigers for 35 years, as well as the Australian men’s team at four successive Olympic Games, from 1972 to 1984; he was also general manager of the Victorian Basketball Association. Andrew made his professional debut with the Tigers at age eighteen in 1983, and was selected to represent Australia at the Los Angeles Olympics the following year. A five-time Olympian, he captained the Boomers from 1994 through to the Sydney 2000 Games, where he was the nation’s flag-bearer. Gaze was the National Basketball League’s leading scorer, for a remarkable sixteen seasons, from 1986 to 2001; holds the NBL record for the average points per game in a season (44.1); was selected in the All-NBL First Team every year from 1986 to 2000; and was named the NBL’s most valuable player seven times. As well as playing American college basketball, he played in the Italian and Greek leagues, and in the NBA, where he played with the Washington Bullets in 1994 and the San Antonio Spurs in 1999 (the year the Spurs won their first NBA championship). In 1991, Gaze was named amongst the 50 greatest players by FIBA (the International Basketball Federation). Retiring from international basketball in 2000, he kept playing for the Melbourne Tigers until 2005. He was appointed coach of the Sydney Kings in 2016. Gaze was inducted into the Australian Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004 and the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2014, he was Australian Father of the Year.
