A community basketball game can look simple from the stands. Players take to the court, referees throw up the ball and the scoreboard ticks away. But long before the first whistle, someone has already made sure all of it can happen.

Michael McMahon is one of those people. He arrives at the stadium early to check the courts are safe, that the game clocks and scoresheets are ready, and that the referees know where they need to be. Once the games start, he referees when needed, mentors young officials, oversees games and helps pack everything away at the end of the night.

For players and spectators, much of that work goes unnoticed. But without people like McMahon, who works for a number of basketball clubs in the Northern Melbourne area, the game begins to fall apart.

“Without volunteers and without the officials, you wouldn’t have a competition,” he tells upstart.

The need for volunteer staff in community basketball is part of a much broader reliance across Victorian sport. Sport and Recreation Victoria reports that 89 percent of Victoria’s community sport workforce identified as volunteers in 2024.

For community basketball associations, this means the difference between a game going ahead and a committee member having to absorb another responsibility can come down to whether someone is willing and able to give up their time.

As basketball has grown, so too has the demand for the people who keep it running. Basketball Victoria’s 2025 Annual Report recorded 225,647 domestic participants, up 12.5 percent from 2022’s number of 200,617.

“Basketball has grown significantly over the last 10 years, in particular the last five, we’re seeing a massive spike in the growth of basketball in general,” McMahon says.

The problem is not a lack of people wanting to play. It is finding enough people willing to give up their time to make those games possible.

“It’s harder to find more volunteers that actually have time to be able to help these clubs or associations successfully,” McMahon says.

Another issue is that when someone leaves, the responsibility simply moves to someone else. The Whittlesea Community Basketball Association club president John Perkins knows this all too well. The club recently lost a committee member who has been responsible for competition-night set-up and pack-up, and contributed to fixturing and disciplinary discussions, and controlled scorers during finals. When the volunteer moved into full-time employment, she found that Tuesday night commitment became too tiring and stepped away.

“All duties that she contributed to came under my responsibility,” he tells upstart. Her departure has left him with more than just extra work. He says the valued volunteer was “another set of eyes” who communicated well with referees and brought “considerable wisdom” to the administration of the competition.

“Her loss is profound,” he says.

For some, like Joel Rowe, volunteering started almost accidentally, when he was asked to score for his mates.

“I just volunteered because it wasn’t that hard and I was happy to help them out,” he tells upstart.

Rowe never really considered himself a formal volunteer.

“Nah I just saw myself as a mate helping out all my mates,” he says.

Yet the role still mattered. Score table officials record points and fouls throughout games, meaning an error can potentially have consequences later in the season.

“I think they don’t realise that the people doing the scoring are essential to the sport,” he says.

Rowe believes that if people like him didn’t step up and take on these roles, the consequences would be straightforward.

“Plain and simple is that the competition wouldn’t be around anymore,” he says. “These volunteers are the backbone to the competition.”

McMahon grew up around basketball, with his father working as a referee and coach. Now, he sees his own involvement as a way of passing that connection to the next generation.

“I’ve grown up on the basketball court my entire life,” he says. “For me it’s about giving back and giving to the next generation, to the sport we all love.”

For McMahon, the solution does not necessarily require someone to take on a major role. Even a small commitment can make a difference.

“If anyone could, even if they can give up half an hour of their week to make somebody else’s life easier … that would be something I would love to see.”

Players may never notice who sets up the court, fills the empty score table seat, or takes on another committee responsibility when someone leaves. But every game depends on somebody doing those jobs.

The work is easy to overlook when everything runs smoothly.

It becomes impossible to ignore when someone walks away.

Article: Alex Whewell is a third year Bachelor of Media and Communication student majoring in Sport Media at La Trobe University. You can follow him on X @alexwhewell_.

Photo: Whittlesea High School Basketball Stadium taken by author