\u201cIt\u2019s been a goal of mine, something I\u2019ve been striving for during my time with the Raptors,\u201d says Goodwillie. \u201cWith the success this organization has had not just last year but in the last few years, it\u2019s really rewarding to achieve that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodwillie, who is in his 15th season with the Raptors, joined the organization as a video and administrative intern in 2005 before moving up to an assistant video co-ordinator in 2006. He became head video co-ordinator in 2011.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always had an interest in basketball and played in high school,\u201d says Goodwillie. \u201cI had an interest in the strategy of the game and thought maybe I\u2019d get into coaching sometime down the road. I ended up getting a great opportunity with my internship \u2026 Everything kind of grew from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Raptors historic victory over the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals prompted a surging interest in basketball among Canadians.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/John-Goodwillie-2-1050x801.jpg\")
Jon Goodwillie during a game against the San Antonio Spurs at the 2019 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by NBA Photos.<\/p><\/div>\n
For Goodwillie, his passion for basketball was the result of growing up as a \u201cbig sports nut type of kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would read the sports section of the newspaper and played a lot of different sports when I was a kid,\u201d says Goodwillie. \u201cWhen I learned about Sport Management, it seemed like a natural path and choice for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says that pursuing his degree at Brock allowed him to combine his love of basketball with the business side of sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrock checked a lot of boxes for me \u2014 it was right in the range of the size of school I was looking for; just far enough away from home but not so far away,\u201d says Goodwillie, who grew up in Toronto\u2019s west end. \u201cMy family has a lot of ties to the region. My ancestors’ old farm is in the Welland area. There\u2019s actually a road in Welland called Goodwillie Drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says something that even the biggest basketball fans may not know is the level of commitment required by everyone in the organization for a team to have a successful season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so much that goes in behind the scenes to getting the players ready for performing their best,\u201d says Goodwillie. \u201cIn a regular season game, in a playoff game, in an NBA Finals game \u2014 that\u2019s the culmination of so much work that\u2019s gone in day in and day out dating back to the very start of the year. Last year, a lot of our success can be attributed to the work that went in not just during the season, but throughout our summer development program and throughout these weeks in September and October.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodwillie was an assistant coach on Nurse\u2019s staff with Canada\u2019s Senior Men\u2019s National Team at the 2019 FIBA World Cup. He was also the head coach of the Raptors NBA Summer League team in Las Vegas, leading it to a 2-3 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On June 13, the Toronto Raptors made history by winning Game 6 of the NBA Finals, marking the first time a Canadian team won the championship. On Monday, Sept. 9, Goodwillie, a Sport Management\u00a0graduate (BSM \u201903), was named an assistant coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":60336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,7484,3319,4052,1,4],"tags":[2350,8242,8244,8243,3694,57,6872,8245],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60335"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60366,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60335\/revisions\/60366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}