Perth Wildcats legend Ricky Grace might not reflect back on his glory days too often as he keeps busy with his tremendous work with youngsters, but took great enjoyment in seeing the 'Cats win their first championship without him.
Grace is one of not only one of the all-time greats of the Wildcats having played in the 1990, 91, 95 and 2000 championships as well as winning six club MVP awards, but also of Australian basketball having represented the Boomers at the Sydney Olympic Games.
The superstar guard arrived in Perth in 1990 thinking he would stay for a couple of years, but he never left playing with the Wildcats right up until retiring at the end of the 2004/05 NBL season.
He played in the Wildcats' first four championship, was Grand Final MVP in 1990 and 93 and all that came after he grew up in Dallas, Texas, played at the University of Oklahoma and then in the NBA with the Atlanta Hawks.
Since retiring Grace has kept a close eye on the Wildcats and still lives in Perth running some exciting sport and development programs right throughout Western Australia and now stretching into the Northern Territory that is doing great work with the youngsters of the regions.
Grace attends as many 'Cats games as he can inside The Jungle and took as much pleasure as anyone in seeing them win their first championship in 10 years, and first without him earlier this year when the Wildcats beat the Wollongong Hawks to become the most successful NBL franchise.
"I'm a huge Wildcats fan and go to the games whenever I get a chance. Nick Marvin the CEO of the Wildcats has really done a good job of making the past players feel welcome and I feel welcome around the club," Grace said.
"I enjoyed seeing the boys finally win a championship without me because I always used to remind Nick that they have never done that until now. It was really enjoyable seeing the guys win last season."
Current Wildcats captain Shawn Redhage is now closing in on Grace's record six club MVP awards, but that doesn’t worry Grace in the slightest.
"They say that records are made to be broken and Shawn is a great player and has done great service to the club," Grace said.
"But honestly I didn’t even know that I had six club MVP's so it's not a big deal to me. What I do know is that I won four championships so that's a bigger deal to me than any of the individual accomplishments."
While Grace carved out a career to make him one of Australian basketball's all-time greats, he doesn’t allow himself to sit back and look back on it now as he just is focusing on the present and future, and the great work he's doing with the girls and boys in the communities he helps out in.
"I don’t think about it, I honestly don’t. I couldn’t tell you where one my championship rings are, which is probably silly, I couldn’t tell you where my Final Four ring is and I don’t like being around people who like to talk about what they've done and where they've been," Grace said.
"It's about what's next for me and I don’t know if it's something I got from my mum because she worked two jobs when my dad wasn’t around, but I'm just a worker. I'm not in a good mood if I don’t do anything and I'm trying to learn to smell the roses along the way, but I just enjoy being productive."
Grace had no idea where Perth was or what Australian basketball would be like when he signed to come in 1990, but he could now think of no place he would have preferred to come and still calls it home today - while getting back to Texas as much as possible to spend time with his kids.
"I loved it from day one. Back in 1990 you didn’t have internet and if you wanted to look up Perth you would have had to buy a World Book Encyclopaedia and I didn’t even bother so I didn’t have any idea where I was going," Grace said.
"I could have been going to Kalgoorlie, Albany or who knows where, but I was lucky to come to Perth, it's a beautiful place, and I chose Australia because it was English speaking.
"I was young, single and thought I'd come here for a two-year holiday, play some basketball and then move back, but in those two years we won two championships. I was also improving as a player and the rest is history. I guess I was in the right place at the right time."
While catch-ups might be rare, Grace's bond with teammates like Andrew Vlahov, Scott Fisher, James Crawford, Mike Ellis, Paul Rogers and Tiny Pinder, among others, remains strong and that's the strongest thing he takes from the championships he was a key part in winning.
"Those guys are like brothers to me. I don’t see them often, but when we do it's like seeing a long-lost brother because we experienced so much. To win a championship you have to bond and the type of bond that you get through sport is something I haven’t experienced in any other walk of life," he said.
"It's kind of like going to war and you look at it that way, you cover each other's back and those guys are my brothers. They were special times and I was lucky to be around such productive people. If you look at those guys 90 per cent of them are very successful in whatever walk of life they have gone into so it was a special time for Perth as a city and me individually."
