The Utah Snowbears officially have a place to call home. Now they are looking for basketball players who can fill the house.
The Snowbears started a three-day invitational camp Wednesday at the Lifetime Activities Center at Salt Lake Community College. The arena is also where they will play their American Basketball Association home games starting in November.
The team is now completely in the hands of former Utah Jazz player Isaac Austin. Austin, who had been a co-owner and head coach, took sole ownership of the team earlier in June from partner Timmy Gibbs. Gibbs, the original owner of the franchise who moved the team from Minot, N.D., to Utah, will be working with one of the ABA franchises in Mexico, Austin said.
"It was nothing bad towards Timmy or anything," Austin said. "I thought he was doing things the right way, but I felt that for the Snowbears to be successful, I had to be totally in control of it. I had to be the forefront, put myself on the line as an investor, as a man in the community."
Community involvement means Austin and the team members will participate in school assemblies, basketball clinics and autograph sessions to compete for fans' attention in a Utah market crowded with the Jazz and college and high school basketball in the winter months.
Austin's pro basketball career began when he was selected by the Jazz as a center in the second round of the NBA draft in 1991. He played in the NBA with several teams, winning the Most Improved Player award in 1996-97 with Miami. Now he is getting into coaching and ownership in an ABA that has changed drastically from last year.
The league has more than quadrupled in size, with 26 new teams joining the seven from 2002-2003, for a total of 31, with possibly more before expansion ends Friday. The ABA hopes to eventually have as many as 80 to 100 teams, according to the league Web site, www.abalive.com, and cities can begin now to reserve franchises to add in 2005. The 25 players at the Snowbears' camp will compete for the 10 active spots permitted on the roster when league play begins.
Besides the players competing in the invitational tryout this week, Austin said he will continue to scout NBA camps and elsewhere throughout the summer before making invitations to the veterans' camp in October that will determine the opening-day roster. Thirteen of the players at the camp were invited back from an earlier open tryout held in Ogden June 11-12. Fifty players attended that tryout, but Austin said he hadn't anticipated inviting so many back. I didn't think I was going to get 10 guys from there, but some guys really impressed me," Austin said.
Most of the players who are in the league will have at least college experience, Austin said, but some will have NBA, NBDL or CBA experience and some will have played overseas in European leagues.
"We're not looking for players to just come here and play in the ABA and that's it," Austin said. "We want guys to advance to the NBA, to enhance their skills for overseas. We're looking to try and produce some players and develop them to get them to the next level and that's the NBA."
Players at the tryout with local ties include former University of Utah players Cameron Koford and Travis Spivey, Harold Arceneaux of Weber State, Troy Rolle of Utah State and Rob McQuain from Logan. McQuain played at Minnesota. Former Nebraska player Jaron Boone, son of Jazz color analyst Ron Boone, is also at the camp.
Koford and Arceneaux both played in Europe last season and said they were excited about the opportunity of playing near were they live.
"I experienced the overseas life (in Portugal), and I liked it, but this is better," Koford said. "It would just be fun to play close to home."
Arceneaux seconded that. He played in France for two years.
"Having the chance to play at home is a great thing," he said. "I could relate to my teammates, and I can tell them to pass me the ball in English."
E-mail: RBurton@desnews.com