To The Beat Of His Own Drum
The Age
Friday June 26, 1998
Forget Mike Kelly's ankle injury, the biggest scare South East Melbourne Magic coach Brian Goorjian has had this week was provided by the team's centre, Brett Wheeler.
"Wheels" set off some elaborate crackers in a park near Goorjian's place on Tuesday night and the coach's small dog, Billy, went to investigate amid more explosions.
"He nearly killed my dog," says Goorjian. "Wheeler, get out of my life!"
Wheeler, a hard-working centre on court but a fun-loving, big puppy dog off it, is relieved the coach's pet was not hurt - and not only because the prank could have cost him playing time in this weekend's grand final against his old team, the Adelaide 36ers.
There will be more pranks before Sunday's first match of the best-of-three-game series: his former teammates can expect at least some strange messages on their answering machines; his '98 playmates should watch out for muffins under their hotel pillows. (Team manager Colin Donovan was on the receiving end in Brisbane last weekend.)
Before he left Adelaide to further his career in Melbourne - and make no mistake, Wheeler is serious about his basketball - the 208-centimetre centre earned the name "Mozzie" from the 36ers.
The team did some tests to see how they would react in certain situations, and Wheeler ranked as an over-the-top annoyer, a mozzie. Sixer and former Magic player Rupert Sapwell, who considers Wheeler one of his best friends in basketball, explains a mozzie is someone who looks to start trouble, who loves to annoy people. That, say his one-season teammates, is Wheeler to a tee.
Sapwell says that in the Adelaide changerooms "Wheels" would look for a piece of hairy skin to put a sticky bandage on; in Melbourne, while feeling his way, the skin is usually slapped, pinched, punched or poked.
Retribution has not been severe, although in Brisbane earlier in the year Tony Ronaldson tied Wheeler's shoelaces around a restaurant table leg and, when he got up to leave, the table went with him for a step or two.
The Magic did not recruit Wheeler as team clown. It chose him ahead of Ben Pepper, who went to the Giants, as a replacement for NBA-bound Chris Anstey and it has been delighted since day one with what it got.
Wheeler took on a bigger load than anticipated when back-up centre John Dorge missed most of the season because of injury. His one failing has been his inability to play more than 25-30 minutes a game, or back up strongly for a day-after match.
This is because of the lingering effects of a virus that, earlier in the season, had the team worried it could have similar effects to the game-weakening glandular fever Wheeler suffered a few years earlier. Tests cleared him of any serious illness but the 26-year-old has had to be nursed to average 30 minutes a game compared to the other starters' 40.
Nothing, however, stops Wheeler approaching his tasks with enthusiasm. He is a ferocious competitor, a left-hander who gets to the basket and the glass at every opportunity and runs himself into the ground.
The same way he approaches drumming. Wheeler played in his high-school concert band and while with the 36ers he and some mates had a no-name rock band that played at a couple of 21sts and at Mike McKay's testimonial at West Adelaide. But Magic teammates didn't know of his musical skills until they went with Andrew Parkinson to a nightclub earlier in the season.
Parkinson got on stage to sing and called other men in black up to make an exhibition of themselves. Only Wheeler responded.
"We'd heard he was a drummer," says Parkinson, "but we thought he just bashed them ... he was better than the band, he was the wheel deal, everyone was in awe."
People in Wheeler's Elwood apartment block wouldn't feel that way if he played as loudly as he did for The Age's photographer.
In fact, he received a notice of eviction two months after moving into the flat. He says it was nothing to do with his drumming. He had just forgotten to pay the rent.
Wheeler dabbles in the arts, too, having been in a few plays but recalling only the name of one, "The Inspector", which ran for a week at a little theatre in Norwood in '96. Among his five parts were a butcher and a policeman.
"Outside of basketball a lot of my friends are artists, actors, directors, comedians, that type of thing," he says.
Wheeler's other interests include computer games, comedy (of course), videos and Star Wars paraphernalia. He explains he has been collecting since he was six, that he has two large crates of Star Wars stuff stored at his parents' house in Adelaide, and he is still buying.
And he is still drawing, although his planned illustration for this story missed the deadline despite many extensions. Wheeler is a bachelor of design and illustrating is his fallback career.
That he is a rare National Basketball League species - someone who earns a degree while playing - shows that hard work can go with a fun time. He recalls taking a small pillow to university and falling asleep under tables after some tiring training sessions.
Likewise, hard work goes with basketball now. Wheeler has a three-year deal with the Magic, the league's toughest workers and best-prepared players. His goal is to win a championship: "People talk about going all their lives without one; it's been seven years, so one would be nice."
Asked where his sport stands in the scheme of his life, he says: "I love basketball but I wouldn't call myself a junkie. I'm not a gym rat but I'm happy to do as much as I can to improve and help the team.
"There are a lot of things I'm interested in, but while I'm here I'll put 100 per cent into it. When it does end I'll be happy to move on to something different."
Sapwell says he is an artist in a basketballer's body. He adds: "A lot of people think `Wheels' is fruity, (but) he's probably got a better grip on reality than most basketballers. He knows that other things exist.
"To the beat of his own drum ... that sums him up. He's a little bit off centre."
Sapwell goes on to tell how Wheeler, just before he left Adelaide for Melbourne, invited him and his wife Cindy over to watch videos.
"It was messy, a sty," he says of the Wheeler house. "We were sitting back watching videos and someone knocked on the door. He'd forgotten he had an open inspection that day on the house."
Going back to Adelaide this weekend is a big moment for Wheeler. He knows the stadium will be packed and will be loudly anti-Magic. He has played well all three times against his old team this year, and early in the season the crowd welcomed him home as a favorite son.
Whatever Wheeler's performance on Sunday he does not expect to be booed as another former Sixer, Melbourne's Mark Bradtke, is each visit. That's not the way you treat someone who would not be out of place as Get Smart's Simon the Likable.
© 1998 The Age