Wayne Parrish likes to minimize his remarkable success with Canada Basketball by citing all the help he’s had since taking over an organization that was $1.5 million in debt and staring down a grim future by saying his job has consisted of having "coffees and beers" with passionate people since the fall of 2007.

That being the case, he must do more with coffee than Juan Valdez.

While full disclosure is necessary here in that Parrish is both a longtime friend and my big boss at Postmedia News, there’s no question he’s turned this program around so quickly and so thoroughly that not writing about it would be a dereliction of duty for this chain of newspapers. So the potentially sucky job should best be done by someone too far along in his career to benefit.

“Three weeks after I took the job, necessity being the mother of invention, I went in to see Bryan Colangelo [president of the Toronto Raptors] and said, ‘Bryan, nobody should be doing this in my position but could you possibly lend us $500,000?’” Parrish was saying of his very early days as president and CEO of Canada Basketball.

“A week later he called and asked me to come in. When I got there he had a cheque for $300,000 and said, ‘It isn’t a loan, it’s a sponsorship contribution.’ Very shortly after that Bell came on board and I can’t say how much help those two have been to us.”