Covering basketball for Wellington's Evening Post during the heady days of the long-departed Rheineck League inevitably involved a lot of contact with the late Kenny McFadden, whose death was reported on Friday.
The 'Chancellor of the Exchequer,' as he was nick-named by capital basketball fans of the predominant Exchequer Saints team, was a driving force of one of the country's better club teams in a great era of the game.
During the mid-1980s, basketball enjoyed prime-time live coverage during the finals weekends.
And, it was in 1985 that McFadden placed himself in the New Zealand psyche with a last-minute three-point shot that won the national title for the Saints.
"I was so pleased when I hit that shot, not for myself because I had done that before, but for the team. When I was 14, I sank a shot which got us into a final in Lansing [Michigan] against Magic Johnson's team. We lost the final but getting there was a thrill.
"But, in 1985, the win was satisfying because we had proved to ourselves as a team that we could beat Auckland. In the first game that year against them, we lost by 30 points. In the second game, we reduced it to a 15-point loss. Then, in the all-important third, the final – we got there by one bucket.
"My shot did it, but I think Frank Mulvihill and John Saker contributed more to that win," he said.
McFadden also knew how to take the good with the bad, and he could thank his friendship with Magic Johnson for that.
"I always remember something Earvin [McFadden always called him by his given name rather than the more well known 'Magic'] said to me. In his rookie year with the Lakers, he scored 42 points in a championship-winning game. He was everyone's friend.
"The next year, he was injured and played in the finals, and in the last game, he drove the line and played a short jump shot…for an airball.
"The newspapers next day carried the headline, 'TRAGIC' Johnson. Things turned around completely in 12 months.
"He told me I should always be the same, win or lose. I only came out to New Zealand to win, so I play the game and go home. I don't get involved in sessions afterwards," he said.
Developing the entertainment factor, and showing New Zealanders what the game was about, was a big part of the American involvement. Apart from exposing players to higher skill levels, it also proved a crowd-pleaser.
And there were few more entertaining contests than those when McFadden was pitted against long-time mate Tyrone Brown, who played out of Palmerston North.
McFadden rated Brown as his toughest all-time opponent.
"He was my roommate at Washington State and knew all my moves and plays. When we played each other, I had a week of mental preparation to get ready.
"I remember one game in Palmerston North, we were so psyched up against each other that I scored 51, and he ended up with 54.
"The thing about it was that if Tyrone ever beat you, you never head the end of it," he said.
Many will recall McFadden's involvement in coaching and his mentoring of a rising Steven Adams in his later life. For many, he was the leader of a string of American imports who inspired New Zealand players that reached its peak at the 2002 world championships where the unsung Kiwis finished fourth.
McFadden, once forced out of the game by injury, set his sights on coaching and helping to improve the New Zealand team. At that stage, they tended to be a rag-tag bunch who paid their own way to play for the country in a mish-mash of games against anyone who had the time to play them.
It wasn't the greatest environment for advancing the obvious skills players had.
McFadden had the belief there was no reason with the correct programme New Zealand should not be able to reach Olympic Games standard.
He thought the qualities New Zealand players had allowed them to play a combative game, utilising the fast break with full-court pressure, and aggressive defence.
Wellington College's new principal Glen Denham, and Mulvihill, were the best examples of the Kiwi style, McFadden said.
"Their talent is not as great as some others. But they have the desire. They dive all over the floor, put up the tough shots, and are classic inside players.
"Frank had more knee burns that any player I have ever known," he said.
McFadden's belief in the New Zealanders was borne out when new players, inspired by the antics of his generation, emerged. Think Phill Jones, Kirk Penney, Pero Cameron, Sean Marks, Ralph Lattimore, Peter Pokai, Mark Dickel, Paul Henare, Dillon Boucher, Judd Flavell, and others.
Those players, and more, are part of the legacy McFadden leaves. If leaving the game in better shape than it was when starting, then McFadden paid his part in achieving that. RIP King Kenny.