The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

RENOWNED basketball coach Steve ‘Bulla’ Pinder, known as one of the role models in the Bain and Grants Town community, passed away on Tuesday morning.

He was 85.

Pinder, a plumber by profession, leaves behind three sons, Kendal, Christopher and Larry and two daughters, Lisa and Desiree, a host of relatives and friends and a countless number of basketball players who called him their “father.”

Kendal Pinder, who spent more than 30 years in Grand Bahama before he returned home about five years ago to help take care of his father, said there were so many people who benefited from his father’s devotion to his profession, vocation and commitment to his community. “There were so many players who called him daddy, but we as children still loved him and appreciated him for what he instilled in us,” Kendal Pinder said of his father. “He was a real disciplinarian. He made sure he took care of us as best as he could.”

For his contribution as a coach in the New Providence Basketball Association and as a role model in the Bain Town community, the Free National Movement through the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture and then minister Algernon Allen, named the basketball court on Christie Park on Nassau Street in honour of Pinder on October 23, 1993.

Kendal Pinder said he would like to request from the Competent Authority to allow his family and friends to host a social distance memorial on Christie Park for persons who remember him as a plumber, coach and community leader.

“Everybody in the community knows Steve ‘Bulla’ Pinder,” Kendal Pinder said. “We hope that we can have some memorial event for him in the park. That is where he did a lot of his coaching in the community.”

The late Pinder coached in the NPBA from the junior to the senior league with great success, but he was never given the opportunity to travel on any of the Bahamas Basketball Federation men’s national teams.

Having started with the Pinder’s Barbershop, Budweiser Baintowners and the Super Wash Baintowners with players such as Van Delaney, Reuben Mounts, Harvey Roker and Bradley Cash, just to name a few.

He also coached the Bridge Inn Baintowners with players like Deckery ‘the Cobra’ Johnson, Wilfred ‘Fly’ Frasier, Ricky ‘Kool-Aid’ Ferguson, William ‘Crow’ Dean and Peter ‘Tosh’ Poitier.

He developed a legacy as one of the unsung heroes in the league as a coach.

As one of the young players coming out of the junior programme, Stephen ‘S’ Brown became an official scorer for the Baintowners under Pinder and he eventually moved into coaching and later joined the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture as a sports officer.

“Bulla was an icon, one of the nation builders for basketball in Bain Town, no ifs and buts about it,” Brown said. “I never remembered him being a coach for the national team and that was so amazing.

“Most of the coaches would have been given that opportunity by the amount of victories that they got. But they never gave Bulla that opportunity because they didn’t see him as the type of coach to be a part of the national programme.”

Brown, however, said with his interaction with Pinder on Christie Park, he taught him a lot about coaching. One of the important lessons he learned from Pinder was simply “if it works, don’t fix it.”

Brown said Pinder said that: “If you run one or two plays and they (your opponents) can’t catch on to it, why change it.”

Based on what he saw, Brown said as great players like Fly Fraiser and Crow Dean were, they found themselves sitting on the bench if they didn’t run the plays Pinder tried to implement. “He was just a great disciplinarian,” Brown pointed out.

Before being transferred to San Salvador in 1999 where he is now coaching at the high school level and serves as an ordained minister of the Gospel, Brown was instrumental in helping to organise the Steve ‘Bulla’ Pinder Basketball Tournament that ran on Christie Park up to the sixth edition in 1998.

“Bulla was good. I know he will be missed in the Bain Town area and in Christie Park,” Brown summed up.