Tommy Nixon cuts to the basket, but he’s held back by his defender, a man much shorter and older than Nixon, with no plausible way to defend the 6’6" forward without fouling him. Unperturbed, Nixon moves to the other side of the court, and settles in a patch of sunlight just beyond the three point line, and waits.
The ball is eventually kicked out to Nixon. He looks down at his feet, a good foot behind the line, and only inches from the grass that surrounds the Kits beach courts. He looks at his defender, who is timidly standing four feet back. Then in one smooth motion, Nixon brings the ball up and launches a three. The rim doesn’t make a sound as the ball soars through it. UBC Alumni go up by 12.
Nixon's calm on the court, and his ability to hit threes isn’t news to Thunderbird fans. But now that Nixon's Thunderbird career is over, it's time for his next steps.
In the NCAA, the stars of major basketball programs are all but guaranteed a spot in the NBA or a premier league in Europe, but CIS stars settle into more modest career-paths. So what have our hoop-stars been up to, and what will Nixon do next?
“I’d like to keep playing,” said Nixon, “but I’m also thinking about further down the road too...basketball doesn’t last forever.”
If Nixon fully commits to playing professional basketball, the odds of him doing so are favourable. In the last five seasons, UBC has sent seven players to the pros. Doug Plumb, captain of the 2012-13 Thunderbirds, played professionally in Hungary. O’Brien Wallace (’13) now plays in Germany. All three graduates of the year before; Nathan Yu, Balraj Bains, and Kamar Burke, played professionally in Hong Kong, India and Canada respectively. And the season before that, both Alex Murphy and Josh Whyte went on to the pros too, in Denmark and Ontario.
But there’s a blemish to these success stories: only Yu and Wallace are still playing. “It’s very standard just to play for a couple of years and come back,” said Nixon. “Pro careers rarely do last long; it’s not a special case to UBC athletes.”
So if pro-careers are short lived, what do our hoop-stars do next? Many make the short move over to the sidelines. Plumb now coaches full-time at the Vancouver Basketball Academy. Burke founded DIPP basketball, a youth basketball academy in the Okanagan. And Blain Labranche, of the 2009-10 Thunderbirds, now coaches college basketball at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Nixon has already dabbled in coaching. This summer, after representing Canada at the World University Games, Nixon coached the Triple Threat U-17 girls team, travelling with them to tournaments in Washington, California and Nevada. “Coaching is something I’m always interested in,” said Nixon. “But in terms of doing it full time right now, I have too many other ideas in my head to do that.”
Nixon is considering going back to school so he could someday teach -- and coach -- at the high school level. Returning to school after basketball though isn’t something our hoop-stars do often. Since 2009, Bains is the only Thunderbird to have done so, enrolling at UBC Law after playing professionally in India.
But that isn’t to say our hoops-stars don’t put their degrees to good use. Andrew McGuinness and Tonner Jackson, who played and graduated alongside Nixon this year, have both decided to leave basketball behind. McGuinness has used his degree from Sauder to get a job at Ernst & Young, while Jackson has used his degree, also from Sauder, to get a job at AntiSocial Media Solutions.
Nixon’s degree is in Kinesiology, which he plans to use to teach physical education. But Nixon is in no rush and said he is looking to take acting classes and get back in touch with music. In high school, Nixon was an accomplished violinist, playing for the provincial orchestra.
After living and breathing basketball for over 10 years, many don’t know what they would do without it, but understandably for some it’s time for a change. Nixon has pursued a professional basketball career by sending out tapes to teams in China and Taiwan, but has yet to commit to the idea completely.
“I’ve pretty much had some of the most special experiences in basketball that I could,” said Nixon, talking more about the friends he has made than the sport itself. “Who knows if it gets any better? I’m just looking to find something that will continue to give me experiences like that.”