Penney from Heaven

Editor's note: As a tribute to the University of Wisconsin's favorite resident New Zealander, senior guard Kirk Penney, The Daily Cardinal proudly presents his very first appearance in the Cardinal. This interview was conducted by former sports editor William Bottnick and originally ran Wednesday, April 28, 1999.

Right now, Kirk Penney has more questions than answers.

For every innocent inquiry asked of him, "Who is your favorite NBA player?" or "What do you like to study?", Penney responds with two or three questions of his own.

"What's Wisconsin like?" Penney said from his home in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. "Have you seen Roy Boone play?"

Penney, a 6'5" shooting guard who signed with the Badgers Thursday, is perhaps the last member of Wisconsin's 1999-'00 recruiting class, which includes Dave Mader, Julian Swartz and Boone.

While Penney visited Madison during UW's spring break ("The Kohl Center-it's a whole other scene") he still has a lot to learn about the program and Head Coach Dick Bennett.

Lucky for him, he experienced playing for another Bennett-Dick's son, Tony, a former NBA player who now serves as a player-coach in New Zealand.

"I saw him play when he was 14 or 15," said Tony Bennett, who met Penney at a basketball camp he was running in Auckland. "[He] was a good, young player, one of the best in the area. He was really a good shooter, just head and shoulders above the rest."

A couple of years later they hooked up again and Bennett invited Penney to join his team in a physical, albeit less athletically gifted league filled with former U.S. college basketball players. Penney earned Rookie of the Year honors in 1998.