When a career ends - or even worse, is brought to an abrupt halt - what fills the void? Media? Coaching? If you are lucky, maybe. Those opportunities are limited in basketball. Some athletes have their lives mapped out and are well prepared, but many don't. Many are so caught up in the daily struggle to continue their career they are not ready when the end comes. It is something that Lucas Walker knows all too well.

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The National Basketball League journeyman and now East Corrimal resident had a marketing degree gained while playing US college basketball but since leaving his home state of Tasmania at age 17 his life had focused on basketball. Nearing the end of his playing career, which he hasn't officially closed the door on yet, he got to thinking about his future beyond basketball.

"I have a marketing degree, I have a PT (personal training) certificate, I was studying project management online, but it was all kind of ... how do I transition into the next chapter with experience in one of the fields I'm already qualified in but I didn't have any experience?" he said.

"That's where I had to change my thinking and say, hang on this is where I've already got 15 years of experience."

That experience comes via an incredible NBL career. He's just short of 250 NBL games, playing with Melbourne Tigers/United, Adelaide, Perth, Cairns and Sydney. He was a part of Perth's 2017 championship team ... over the Illawarra Hawks ... but let's not dwell on that. He represented his country, playing with the Boomers and winning gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Yet one simple idea would set his life on a new trajectory. Like all good ideas, the idea came to Walker while he lay awake in bed.

"It literally just came to me," he said. "I actually woke my partner up and said 'I've had this cool idea, tell me if it's a cool idea'. She was like 'go to sleep and tell me tomorrow' and I was like 'I don't want to in case I go to sleep and forget'. It kind of snowballed from there."

Little did Walker know what the idea would become. That one idea led to the formation of REPN Australian, a new fitness company which launches nationally on October 6. So what's REPN?

"REPN's basketball's version of high intensity interval training," Walker explains.

"Basketballers are considered some of the best athletes on the planet and they are that way because of how they train. It's upper and lower body strength through weights, it's agility through footwork and hurdles, it's resistance and speed training through resistance bands, it's cardio, it's skillwork with a basketball. Anything which is applicable to the game of basketball is in a REPN training session.

"The classes are scalable from 16-year-old kids who want to go to US college or someone who has never picked up a basketball before. Basketball is such a dynamic sport it encompasses all levels of fitness and strength so anyone can do it if they're looking for something different."

Walker has moved his soon-to-be-expanding family to live in the Illawarra and it will be from here he will manage the launch of the business in five locations in NSW and more around the country into the future. October promises to be a big month for the Walker family, with his partner Jess and daughter Willow (almost 2) expecting the addition of a little brother due on October 12.

The idea for REPN came to Walker last year when he was at a crossroads in his own career. He'd been training before the start of the last NBL season in the hope of gaining a spot with Melbourne United, but was overlooked. He was informed by text message. He thought his career was over.

While he didn't know it at the time, a chance meeting with a stranger at Sydney Airport at the end of the previous season would be central to Walker's future. "Tough game last night," the bloke said to him.

It was the day after Walker had finished playing with Cairns in the 2018-19 NBL season and they'd just lost the night before in a close game to Sydney. He got chatting with the friendly stranger as they walked through the airport.

"I had no idea who he was and I asked whether he was at the game or had seen it on telly and he said he was there," Walker said.

"We were at the doors of the Qantas lounge and I said are you coming up and he said 'I'm not coming up there I'm not a member' and I said 'come up with me and we'll keep shooting the shit'. He seemed like a decent bloke. We went up there, had a coffee and after about 15 minutes he said he was part owner of the Sydney Kings."

That bloke as Walker discovered was Paul Smith, the now owner of the Kings, prominent Sydney businessman and Minnamurra resident with proud links to the Illawarra. Walker had no sense of the important role Smith would play. It was later in the year, when he was passed on by Melbourne, that Walker was given a lifeline to play with the Kings and moved his family to Sydney.

While he had the idea for what would become REPN, he hadn't yet shared it but he thought if he was going to run a basketball fitness program he should probably ask the Kings' permission first. A conversation with the Kings CEO Chris Pongrass led to a dinner with Smith, whose business acumen saw the opportunity and sent Walker's initial idea into orbit.

"I was literally thinking last night a couple of things have happened which got me thinking about where I'm at and none of that would have happened if it wasn't for Paul and that meeting at the airport," Walker reflected.

"It was Paul's vision and support which got me here. Otherwise it was just me and a van. He's just a super, down-to-earth guy who is hellbent on helping people."

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Smith himself verifies every detail of their chance meeting at the airport and even reveals Walker's move to the Kings later that year was no accident.

"It was a captain's call," Smith said this week. "We had six names on a whiteboard and one spot left on the roster. At the Kings we'd consistently discussed getting the right team culture and I said I know this guy and he's a good guy ... captain's call."

It's no surprise then Lucas and Jess settled on the Illawarra as their choice to raise their growing family.

"We were living in Olympic Park (in Sydney) and it's a circus," he said. "Jess and I both love the beach. Here (East Corrimal) it's a bit slower paced, more space, we've got a backyard now. It was a no brainer and I was still close to Sydney for work when I need to be there."

Life, as Walker can attest, is a series of sliding door moments.

On the wall at the Snakepit, the sentimental home of basketball in the Illawarra, a large black and orange sign now stands proudly. It sits underneath the bar platform where famously well-oiled locals would shake the basketball ring connected to it when opposition players were taking their foul shots in the early days of the NBL.

The sign advertises REPN, the high intensity training program which will be run at the Snakepit by two very familiar faces in the Illawarra, former Hawks Tyson Demos and Cortez Groves. The duo have partnered on REPN Wollongong, which launches next month.

Well-known Illawarra businessman and former ironman Jonathan Crow is also on the REPN board. Not only does the company offer a different health and fitness opportunity for people, it also provides another employment option for basketballers during or post-career. The five NSW REPN sites will be all managed by current or former NBL players: Shaun Bruce (North Sydney), Kevin Lisch (St George and Sutherland), Dan Kickert (Castle Hill) and Demos and Groves at the Snakepit.

"A lot of guys anticipate when they start playing they'll have a 10-year career," Walker said. "When I was at the AIS my coach Marty Clarke always told us the average NBL player had a career of four years and even in the NBL 10 years does not set you up for life ... in the NBA or high level Europe for sure ... not in the NBL.

"I've got really close mates on all teams across the league and we all have the same conversations like 'I've gotta get one more year because I don't know what I'm going to do afterwards'."

It was Sydney Kings owner Paul Smith who helped Walker realise REPN had the potential to help others. It also fitted with Smith's greater vision for basketball.

"We (Kings' ownership company Total Sport and Entertainment) have talked about the role of basketball as a lifestyle and we're interested in basketball extensions outside the elite," Smith said. "This fitted into the broad concept of how we tap into the lifestyle."

Tyson and Cortez will hold a free prelaunch REPN session at the Snakepit at 10 am on October 3. Email wollongong@REPN.com.au to reserve a spot

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