Our people. Our stories. Our history: Tony Ronaldson

Tony Ronaldson is the NBL’s all time games record holder (665 games), a former Perth Wildcats captain, and a player whose five seasons with the club became part of a much longer connection to Perth and with the Red Army.

For more than a decade, Ronaldson knew Perth as an opponent, making the trip west from Melbourne to face some of the biggest names in club history and a Wildcats team that had already built a reputation across the league.

“I played in Melbourne for a long time, for around 12 years,” Ronaldson said.

“We’d come over here and play against the formidable Wildcats team of Vlahov, Fisher, Ricky Grace, Crawford and so on.”

Those battles shaped the way Ronaldson viewed the Wildcats and when the opportunity came in 2002 to play for the club, the appeal was already evident.

“That’s one of the reasons why, when the opportunity came up to come and play here, I came across,” Ronaldson said.

“Simply the culture and just what the Wildcats were.”

Ronaldson arrived during a period of change. The Perth Entertainment Centre era had ended, Challenge Stadium had become home, and the Wildcats were trying to find their next version while basketball across Australia was also shifting.

“When I first got here, we were going through some transition,” Ronaldson said.

“We had a good team and made the Grand Final, lost to Sydney which was unfortunate, but a good group of guys and we just fell short.”

That missing championship remains part of Ronaldson’s Perth chapter because he understands the standard that has always followed the Wildcats. At some clubs, a Grand Final appearance can stand on its own. In Perth, it comes with the feeling that there was still something left to finish.

“Obviously fell short of winning a championship, which is what the Wildcats define themselves from, which is exactly the way it should be,” he said.

“But I had a great five year stint here.”

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After leaving the Wildcats, he played three seasons in New Zealand, and when his playing career finished he had the option of returning to Melbourne or staying across the Tasman. Instead, he came back to Western Australia.

“Perth is family,” Ronaldson said.

“When I went to New Zealand to play for three years, I met a Perth girl prior to going. Could have gone to Melbourne, could have stayed in New Zealand but chose to come back here.”

“I think Perth lifestyle, family, just the attitude and beauty of what this place has to offer is really appealing to me,” Ronaldson said.

“Not having to sit in traffic for three hours to get somewhere is also pretty appealing as well. But I think lifestyle and people and family are what Perth is about.

“Obviously the Wildcats are a part of that fabric as well.”

Ronaldson still gets back to Wildcats games when he can, often with his youngest son, who loves basketball and enjoys coming along to watch Perth play. It has given him a chance to see the club from another place in life, as a former Wildcat who still feels connected to the team, the city and the Red Army.

“I’ve got young kids and my youngest son loves playing basketball and loves coming to a Wildcats game, and the club is fantastic with me being an ex-player,” Ronaldson said.

“I certainly get to as many as I can and love being a part of it, and just being really impressed to see it grow back into what it was in those 90s.”

Ronaldson sees what the Red Army has helped create at RAC Arena and understands what that support gives the Wildcats.

“I think support, there’s no substitute for that,” Ronaldson said.

“We were probably only averaging about three and a half, 4000 people at Challenge Stadium as opposed to now where it’s 10,000 plus at every game.

“There’s a reason that most people win at home and don’t win on the road.

“All of that, from a Wildcat perspective, is to do with the Red Army and the fortress they’ve created at RAC.”

Reflecting on his own time as captain, which he looks back on with pride, but also honesty as the club was still trying to find its new identity at the time.

“It was an interesting one I only captained for a year and it was an interesting year.”

“I was on the ‘downward side’ of my career being 30, rather than everything looking rosy, and just adapting to that.

“Different players coming in to play my role, I had to adapt, different coaches. So it was a real period of change for the Wildcats, but one that helped me grow as a basketball player and as a human.”

His ability to adjust helped Ronaldson build one of the longest careers in Australian basketball. He retired at 38, became a dual Olympian while he was a Wildcat and also won a Commonwealth Games gold medal during his time with the club.

“I tried to push as long and as far as I could,” Ronaldson said.

“It’s a great job. I really loved it. I loved playing basketball. I loved the opportunities that gave me.

“As a Wildcat, I made the Olympic team in 2004. That was really important to me, to become a dual Olympian rather than just going to the same one in 1996.

“To be able to do that, to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal also in Melbourne, when I was a part of the Wildcats as well, I had some really good basketball memories in regards to achieving things.”

For all the games, records and representative moments, Ronaldson still speaks most strongly about the people basketball brought into his life. Two of his closest friends in Perth, Paul Rogers and Mark Cattalini, both came through the Wildcats, and those relationships have stayed with him long after his playing days.

“Oh look, I think that my two best mates here in Perth, Paul Rogers and Mark Cattalini, who are both ex-Wildcats, both great friends of mine,” Ronaldson said.

“I went through different journeys with each of them.”

While he didn’t play with Cattalini at the Wildcats, their friendship became part of his life in Perth. Rogers was an Olympic teammate, Wildcats teammate and Commonwealth Games gold medal teammate, as well as one of the great figures in club history.

“If you speak to most people about their sporting career, there’s the championships and the winning and the losing and everything that goes along with it,” Ronaldson said.

“But it’s the friendships and the relationships you create on that journey that stick with you for life.”

Ronaldson has also watched the Wildcats’ culture continue through the people who came after him. When asked what has allowed the club to maintain such a strong identity, he keeps coming back to the same answer: people.

“I think people are what drive culture,” Ronaldson said.

“Back in those days, after I left, the people that they bought in, Damian Martin, Shawn Redhage, BC, they went a long way to really helping the Wildcats be what they are and stamping their identity.

“Ultimately, culture is about people and the right people driving it, having the right attitude.”

That connection remains strong today. Ronaldson still supports the Wildcats, still wants more championships and wants to see John Rillie, his former Olympic teammate and friend, add another banner to the rafters.