Playing sport gave Logan Basketball general manager Mitch Young amazing experiences and now he’s finding satisfaction in paying that forward. He talks to Carissa Mason.
Imagine a basketball court set up in the middle of a stadium the size of Suncorp, the stands packed with 44,000 spectators, lacing up your sneakers and stepping onto the court to play.
At just 19, that was Logan Basketball general manager Mitch Young in 2010.
It was his first year at Saint Mary’s College, playing in the NCAA Sweet 16 tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indiana alongside four Aussie teammates, including his best mate Matthew Dellavedova.
Young lists it as one of the highlights of his basketball career, right up there with playing for Australia in the U19 World Championships and pulling on a jersey for the team he followed growing up – the Brisbane Bullets.
Young started playing basketball after tagging along to the Cornubia courts with his mum Julie when she played in the ladies’ daytime competition.
“I started playing Thunderball on the 8-foot rings and I was so tall, I could almost dunk it, so they put me into U10s,” he says.
“I was always tall. In under 14s, I was 6.3, 6.4, by under 16s I was 6.7.
“It was awkward while I was growing,” he says.
“When I started to go to State High, I used to catch the 555 from the Hyperdome and I was too big to squeeze into the seats, so I always stood up.”
The oldest of three boys, Young played representative basketball for Logan Thunder from Under 12s to U18s while he was a student at Kimberley Park State School, then Chisholm Catholic College before being recruited to Brisbane State High and then the Australian Institute of Sport.
“Being able to train with and go up against the best players in the country every day really helped,” he says.
“I always wanted to be a professional basketballer. I wanted to travel, go to college and get an education.”
Basketball has taken the 206cm power forward around the world, playing in tournaments in Germany, France, Russia, New Zealand, China and Taiwan.
“My dream was to play for the Brisbane Bullets. Growing up here, I always wanted to play for Brisbane,” he says.
The Bullets folded while Young was at the AIS, when then owner Eddy Groves went bankrupt so, when Young returned to Australia after completing a business degree at college, he played for both the National Basketball League’s remaining Queensland teams – the Cairns Taipans and the Townsville Crocodiles.
When the Bullets returned to the league in 2016, Young was stoked to pull on a Bullets jersey and step onto the court at South Bank, where he had watched them play as a kid.
“I was really lucky and had a lot of good people that helped me on the way: Marty Clark at the AIS, Adam Caporn at St Mary’s (now the Australian men’s national team coach) Randy Bennett at St Mary’s…”
Young played 163 NBL games until he and now wife Hayley decided it was time to put down roots.
The general manager job came up at Logan Basketball and it seemed like the right fit, he tells me from his office above the courts where he learnt to play.
“It was a way to give back to an association and a community that had given a lot of opportunities and a pathway to me,” Young says.
“At the time, we were a developing association. We have grown to be one of the most successful.”
Participation has more than doubled since Young started.
“When I was a junior, Logan Basketball had 800 members. When I started here it had 1200. Now we have over 3000 playing members and over 10,000 people on our database,” Young says.
“Basketball is the fastest growing sport in Australia and Logan is one of the fastest growing regions.”
But Logan Basketball isn’t just big – it’s thriving, winning games, picking up awards and coaching players towards bigger pathways.
Logan Basketball has claimed Basketball Queensland’s prestigious Vince Hickey Shield back-to-back for the past two years for being the top-performing junior basketball association in the state based on State Championship results across U12-U18.
In 2023 Young was named Basketball Queensland’s administrator of the year.
In 2025, Logan’s U14 boys team became the first Queensland boys team to win a national club championship.
Three Logan U17s players have just been picked to play for Australia in July. Andrew Watene will play for the Crocs in Turkey, while Jay Sebasio and Olivia Olechnowicz will suit up for the Sapphires in Czechia. A fourth player, Maddison Reisinger, also made the squad.
In 2021, Logan’s women’s team won the NBL1 North championship for the first time, making it the best women’s basketball team in Queensland.
The team picked up the title again in 2025, with student athletes from Marsden and Brisbane state high schools on the roster, including starter Prasayus Notoa.
Notoa had progressed through Logan’s representative program since U14s and has just signed a contract to play for Brigham Young University in Utah, joining fellow Logan Basketball alumni Vahayliah Seumanutafa.
Recent changes allow American college athletes to share in revenue from the multi-billion-dollar college basketball enterprise.
“All our kids going to college are going to set themselves up for life,” Young says.
He credits Logan Basketball’s success to a growing culture of giving back and creating a legacy.
“We have a great management committee and good people within Logan Basketball that care about community and want to see our people have success,” he says.
“We’re starting to get parents that played here as juniors coming back and coaching. That’s how you get strong foundations and growth, because they feel a part of it.”
WNBL Sydney Flames point guard Mikhaela Cann came up through Logan’s junior program, has just played 150 NBL1 games for the Thunder and her three girls are now playing.
“She is a role model that young girls get to see and want to be like,” Young says.
“And while she plays in our senior team, her fingerprints are across everything and she gives a lot back.”
Young clocked up 144 NBL1 games for Logan Thunder before his #3 jersey became the first Logan jersey to be retired in 2023.
“My three-year-old son Luka will put on a Thunder jersey soon,” he says.
“For him to look up from the court and see my number on the wall will be pretty special.”
Young says he was happy to retire after 16-17 years of playing full-time.
To stay fit, he has taken up road running, using the Strava app to compete with mates.
He has a running challenge with Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers – whose son Jack plays at Logan – to see who will have the best 5km time at the end of August.
“I’m aiming for under 20 minutes by the end of winter,” Young says.
But it’s sport fishing that gets him really excited.
He and Hayley got into it during their time living close to the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns.
“Sports fishing is really physically challenging,” Young tells me, and his eyes light up.
“You have to be fit to cast big, heavy lures. The lure hits the water and runs across the surface and you see the big fish just under the water. It smashes it and there’s a huge explosion and it’s a tough fight to try to land them.”
Young’s passion for fishing was first sparked by his grandfather, Norm Whitford, 89.
“We used to chase jewfish and flathead at Iluka in northern New South Wales,” he says.
Now, his favourite place is K’gari, where he and Hayley chase giant trevally.
“There’s a place called Break Sea where there’s no phone reception. You can go there and unplug,” he says.
The other way Young unplugs is early mornings before work.
“If you come in here at 6am, it’s hard to get a court. There’s 20-30 kids here before school in our development program,” he says.
So, he arrives at Cornubia Park Sports Centre at 5am some mornings.
“I love having music on and putting some shots up in the early morning when it’s quiet,” he says.
As general manager, Young’s role covers everything from finance, legal, staffing and venue management to sourcing sponsorship and recruiting players for the senior teams.
“I love all of it. I really feel like it’s a job where I get to build a legacy for the Thunder family,” he says.
“Sport is really important in our community for character development.
“There a big problem in Australia and Queensland for youth crime.
“On a Friday night, kids playing sport in a structured environment with their mates with good coaches is good for their development and it keeps them away from stealing cars and getting into trouble.
“It’s a positive environment that helps them grow as people and teaches them to give back to their community.
“And basketball’s an awesome sport – dribbling, shooting, passing – you get to do everything.
“It’s for boys and girls, tall, short – everyone can play. It’s very inclusive.”
Logan Basketball has a partnership with BEST Disability to host a free inter-school league, with 120 players with a disability competing each week.
Young says his biggest challenges are facilities, referees and officials, and coaches.
“Our biggest challenge is trying to get courts. Schools have a lot of courts. It would solve some problems if we could unlock those for basketball,” he says.
Site works are starting on a $141 million, Olympic-standard, multi-purpose indoor stadium with nine courts at Logan Central. But it won’t open until 2028 and its management has not yet been decided.
“I’d love to get another venue,” Young says.
“We think our model works for venue management. We keep the fees low so people can get on the courts and be involved in sport. We just want people playing sport.”
Young says Logan Basketball has put a lot of work into developing referees and officials, partnering with Basketball Queensland to provide structured training.
“We place a lot of emphasis on developing our coaches,” he says.
“Coaching is about developing player’s skills and also about managing personalities to get players to play their best and, we want our coaches to shape people most of all.
“We get our U18 rep players to teach Thunderball [for 4-7 year-olds] on Friday nights and Saturday mornings.
“We identify up-and-coming coaches and partner them with a senior coach as a mentor.”
Young is pleased he’s just hired new coach development manager Nic Martin from Basketball Tasmania.
“Because we have good coaches and talent in the program, we can attract good people,” he says.
Young also has a strong network of people he draws on for expert advice, including his lawyer brother Billy Young, who played and refereed at Thunder, and his brother-in-law, Brisbane Broncos chief executive Dave Donaghy.
“I’m lucky to be working in sports business with the organisation that gave me my start,” he says.
“I just love sport and everything it gives you – the character development, life lessons, highs and lows.
“My favourite part is seeing our kids develop and reach their potential.
“We give them the pathways here in Logan to go and play in the rest of the world.”
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