Dino Nation: "Searching For Nathan Jawai"
 

A good read courtesy of the blog "Dino Nation". Jawai that talks with people from Australia and looks in depth into his journey to the NBA. Pretty inspiring and even if he doesn't amount to much here in Toronto I can see him as another Raptor fan favourite ala Matt Bonner and JYD. :D

Take a few minutes to check it out. :clapping:

Link - http://dinonationblog.wordpress.com/...-nathan-jawai/

Australian Rules Football rules! But I'm glad he chose basketball.

5000 words. Whoa :p

But that was good. Great read. I learned some new stuff about Nate in that blog.

I just hope he brings more rebounding and effort than the last "Baby Shaq", Eddy Curry.

Thanks Folks
 

Hi people:

I am the person who wrote this. Doc one of your forum admins invited me to come be a part of your group here. I am already a lot of places but I will try my best to pop in here once in awhile as well. I just wanted to thank the folks that read Searching Nathan Jawai. I feel to date it has been the best thing the Dino Nation Blog has put together.

So thanks to all of you and I appreicate the support of all Raptor Fans.

James The Dino Blogger

Nice blog Dino, I like a lot.

I've really enjoyed the stuff you've brought to the Hoops show on the FAN over the years, as well as your blog James. Thanks for keeping me from banging my head against the wall on many an occasion.

The only thing I dont get is this "first indigenous basketballer to be drafted" business. What do they mean by that? Is it from Australia, or do they mean the world over? Because last i checked, anytime you're drafting a Euro, you're drafting an indigenous person.

and isnt Bogut an Aussi?

Yeah, but he is not indigenous.

And you cant really considere anybody in Europe or most places in the world indigenous because of the mix of races for thousands of years.

He comes from one of the islands, and they differentiate between aboriginal people and the people of different islands by referring to the non-mainlanders as indigenous.

Out of the difference that LX points, aboriginal or indigenous is the name for people whose race was there before european (in this case) arrived.

Yeah - I'm just pointing out that the Australians use the term in less of a world-wide sense and more to differentiate between two sets of non-europeans.

Before listening about Jawai I hadn't clue about that difference between those words.

Thanks
 

Thanks. A lot of folks have made the connection in other Raptor related sites. I am James in Hamilton (98% of the time) The guys on the hoops show...Eric, Paul and Jack have all been great supporters to my efforts with the Dino Nation Blog. So much so I started a Hall of Fame for the blog recently and made them the first 3 people to go in it. They are all fantastic people and I have had good fortune to have them as guests in my blog.

Eric Smith use to do interviews with me when I was working on a college radio station here in Hamilton. He and Chuck were often guests on my Round Ball Review Segement as part of a sports show called Jock Talk.

As For Nathan the explanation about him and being indengious person is pretty much on the money. Basically if you have seen Corcdile Dundee the friend of Paul Hogan's Charcter that was tribal guy with cell phone is an example of an idengious person.

That being said in Australia these people have had few heros. If you recall the games in Sydney there was an Australian Runner whos name I forget that won some medals and a big deal was made of her background as an indegenious person. I think she carried the flag for Australia in the opening or closing cermonies of that game.

I am happy to be here. In fact based on what I have seen I will likely be here more and for go one of the many sites I am a part of on a regular basis. You people seem to have a very positive attuide and supportive nature in general. Not all raptors based sites have that kind of feel to them.

thanks man, we are always happy to add posters that trully contribute to the raptors republic ;)

Cool to hear that you did some college radio. I spent many years doing everything under the sun at the station in Guelph, including doing the technical stuff for college basketball games, and I even pretty much ran the place for a while. I'm sure you'd have some idea why I say "pretty much". Anyway it's always nice to meet up with some brethren of public radio.

Finally...putting it in terms I can understand! :haha:

On a serious note...your "resume", so to speak, is mighty impressive. I hope you do make this a regular stop to talk some Raptors ball. I'll certainly try to stop by your blog regularly.

Back to a not serious note...Rod Benson said in his latest blog entry that Jawai sounds like Mickey Mouse. If true, the comedic interview potential here excites me to no end!

Can anyone confirm this?

Of course you can consider people in europe indigenous. Not ones who've recently immigrated or who were brought in as indentured slaves and what not. But before there were "europeans". what were there? europe is about 1000 years old (maybe even 300), but your people and the people i come from have been there much longer, they just had another name for themselves. tribes mixing doesn't necessarily alter a person's given indigeneity.

North America is a different story. As is Africa.

Would this be the same Jock Talk on Mohawk C101.5? I used to contribute to that show back in 98 when wiley bloye was running the sports programming at the station. if that's the same jock talk...

good to have you man.