After a second major knee injury forced former professional basketball player David Patrick to cut short his career at the age of only 28, there was a time when he thought his involvement in the sport was pretty much over.

But four years on the Bermudian now finds himself as an assistant coach of a Division One NCAA college team in California with aspirations of working in the NBA in the not too distant future.

Patrick, a former member of the Syracuse college team that finished national runners-up in 1996, was promoted to the assistant coaching position at St. Mary’s College in mid-April and will work alongside head coach Randy Bennett — a well-respected figure with more than 20 years experience at the Division One level.

After transferring from Syracuse to Louisiana-Lafayette college in 1997, Patrick spent three years there as a point guard before going on to play four years of pro ball in the top leagues of Australia, England and Spain.

But while most aspiring coaches can often labour for up to ten years to reach the position of assistant at a high-profile college basketball school like St. Mary’s, Patrick only began coaching full-time less than a year after his knee injury forced him to stop playing — with the former Saltus Primary School student taking up the assistant coaching job at Nicholls State University in Louisiana.

“I guess you could say I’ve reached the position I have (at St. Mary’s) much quicker than most, so I know I’m very lucky and am looking forward to the challenge of the job,” said Patrick, who is friends with the Island’s only other professional player Sullivan Phillips and has been back on the Island this week visiting his family.

“Last season I was head of basketball operations at St. Mary’s which essentially involved a lot of administrative work, but now I’ll be more directly involved in coaching and recruitment.

“When I tore my ACL for the second time while playing in Spain and decided to stop playing basketball, I had no real intention of getting involved in coaching and was thinking about making a complete break from the sport altogether.

“But after I had some time off, a coaching position became available at Nicholls State and I haven’t really looked back since then. I do miss playing I have to admit because I was pretty young when I stopped.

“So I do get the itch from time to time even now, but I’ve been presented with such a fantastic opportunity at St. Mary’s that I’m just looking forward to making the most of it.

“The programme there is an excellent one and we’re consistently one of the top two teams in the Western Coast Conference. We’re a little bit different from a lot of the other schools in that we recruit players from as far a field as Australia, Brazil and Morocco — which I think is why my input is valued there because I have a lot of overseas contacts from my playing days. I spend a lot of my time travelling — perhaps a little too much for my wife!

“It’s far too late for many people to watch it here but we’re also regularly on ESPN on Monday nights at around 10 p.m. west coast time, so we get a fair amount of television coverage.

“From a personal perspective, ultimately I would like to coach in the NBA, and the guy I’m working under right now is well connected there — so I definitely feel like I’m in the right place.”

With all the time he spends coaching and travelling the world on St. Mary’s’ behalf in search of fresh talent, Patrick is only able to to return home about once a year and admits he has rather lost touch with the local basketball scene.

But he expressed an interest in eventually getting back involved, and even offered his coaching services to the national team.

“I live in California now and am very busy with my job at St. Mary’s, but I would certainly like to get involved back here, maybe working with the kids or helping out at a senior level,” he said.

Phillips, meanwhile, a 6ft 5ins guard/forward, is currently plying his trade in the top Hungarian league after an extended stint at a couple of different pro teams in the UK.