As a 16-year-old, Scott Pendlebury displayed the meticulous work ethic and professionalism which would lay the foundations for an AFL career that two decades later would see him become the all-time games record holder.
But these early qualities weren't honed on a football field, but in the Sale basketball stadium where he'd spent 90 minutes training each morning before school, taken under the wing of another local product, NBL journeyman Rhys Carter who would go on to play for Australia and around the world.
Carter was 20 and with two NBL seasons under his belt when he returned home for a spell. He found a willing worker in Pendlebury, who was six months off earning a basketball scholarship to the Australian Institute of Sport. By the end of the year, they were championship teammates winning the Country League title for the Sale Sonics.
"Four days a week, I'd pick Scott up at 6.30 in the morning, drive to the stadium where we'd shoot for 45 minutes then play one versus one for 45 minutes, then he'd change into his uniform and I'd drop him to school," Carter told Zero Hanger.
"I tried to teach him a few things, get him to a point he goes to the AIS, two weeks later he quits and comes home. He wasted months of my life! I've always told him that and he's paid me back in tickets and shoes and all kinds of stuff over the years.
"It's no surprise he's where he is because he had the work ethic, he was driving me to show him how I trained. He's been a pro since day one."
Carter will be at the MCG, as a guest of Pendlebury, when the 38-year-old plays his record-breaking 433rd game on Saturday.
David "Wally" Mowbray coached Pendlebury through juniors in Sale, Vic Country and to a gold medal at the Youth Olympics in Sydney with a team featuring the dual premiership Magpie and five-time Olympians Patty Mills and Joe Ingles.
Mowbray can't make it to Melbourne this weekend as he enters week two of recovery from a hip replacement.
“If Scott hadn't have been managed a few times this year, he would have broken the record weeks ago,” he laughed.
With Pendlebury's professionalism and dedication, the makings of an elite athlete were obvious early.
“And that's the secret isn't it?” Mowbray said.
“He also had talent, strengths in certain areas. It's been well reported he's not the fastest athlete but on the basketball court you don't need to be physically fast if your mental ability knows what's happening in the game, you can be ahead of it.”
Watching from India this weekend, where he is building the country's basketball program, will be legendary Australian coach Marty Clarke who was at the helm of the AIS when Pendlebury emerged as a smooth moving guard with a high IQ.
Pendlebury and Mills were the best two guards of their age group and had been earmarked to represent Australia at the 2007 Under-19 World Championships.
When a homesick Pendlebury departed the AIS to return to Victoria and take up footy, Mills took his place in the program.
“When they were too young to bring into the Institute they came on a few tours with us, Scott came to Germany, Patty went to the US. We knew at that point they'd probably be the starting back court of the next group coming through,” Clarke said.
“When it was time and he was old enough, we offered Scott a scholarship, he accepted, he came to camp, went off to the Youth Olympics in Sydney, comes back and then he calls on the Saturday night and says ‘I want to talk to you'. He came in and said ‘I really like football'.
“At that point, it was always proposed basketball and football were in this recruiting war but I never saw it like that – I saw it as ‘how can we make sure our best sport speople stay in sport?' I encouraged him to try it, he was going to play TAC Cup.
“If we tried and forced him to play basketball he'd hate it and we'd lose him all together.”
And while basketball ultimately lost Pendlebury, did he have what it took to go pro?
“He was certainly a national under-19 level player – if that transfers to seniors who knows because it's a big difference. I think he probably would have because he had transferable skills like intelligence,” Clarke explains.
“He wasn't jet quick like Patty but he had great balance, so more down the Joe Ingles side where his balance and composure makes him look quick.
“I could see Scott's skills transferring straight to football, his hand-eye co-ordination, his vision, understanding. I knew he'd be a great footballer but I'd be lying if I said I knew he'd be this great.
“He was well identified and well on the way to becoming an Australian junior basketballer but the path he chose proved to be a very good one.”
Tom Wilson wore Pendlebury's famous No.10 jumper as a kid. He first met his idol in the outer at a TAC Cup game where his dad John grilled the Collingwood star about his decision to pursue footy over hoops.
Years later when Wilson accepted a US college basketball offer he sought the advice of Pendlebury. Then, in 2019, they became teammates when Wilson joined the Magpies as a Category B rookie.
Before training as players warmed up or got treatment, a tiding of Magpies, including Pendlebury and Wilson, would be shooting hoops and playing one-on-one.
Then there was the highly anticipated, annual end of season game.
"We used to play a full five-on-five game the week after the season ended. It was bayside vs northsiders at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, we used to get the show court. That was pretty epic," Wilson said.
So, has Pendlebury still got it?
"Oh yeah. It's pretty amazing, he hasn't played in 20 years but you can just tell. Similar to how he plays football – very considered, has time, smooth. You can tell he would've been a very good player," Wilson said.
With a famous basketball background, perhaps Pendlebury also has a basketball future.
"He's actually said to me he wouldn't mind trying to play NBL1 (a winter national league season where Wilson currently plays for the Melbourne Tigers) but he thinks his body would be toast," Wilson revealed.
"I'd hope it would be for the Tigers, but his boy Jax is playing domestic down at Sandringham.
"I have no doubt he could do it. It's a standard of competition where he could hold his own but the hardest thing would be running on the hardwood floor after so long running on grass."
