date_range Published 27 Jun 2019

It is with great pleasure that at tonight’s Basketball Otago AGM, Mr Lance Pearson was awarded Life Membership to our organisation after being nominated by the Mid-City Magic Basketball Club.

Lance’s contributions to basketball in our region have been many and are summarised below:

  • Played basketball & cricket for Otago
  • Helped form the Otago Men’s Basketball Association in the late 1960’s when there were two men’s basketball bodies in Otago
  • Represented Otago until he was 42 years old
  • Captained Otago to multiple South Island championships in the 50’s and 60’s and led Otago to achieve national championships in Tauranga in 1968 and again in Auckland in 1970
  • Helped men’s basketball in Otago to be a main winter sport when it started to be played on Saturdays in 1971
  • Assisted with the beginning of mini-ball in Otago which currently has over 160 teams participating in Dunedin alone

Lance has been an outstanding contributor to the development of basketball in Otago for more than thirty years, and helped bring Steven Adams to the city in 2018 which attracted over 400 youth to his camp.

We were honored to recognise these contributions tonight with Lance and his family and congratulate him on his life membership.