Dad set up a basketball court at home, a quarter court, and we’d play ‘two on two’, one adult and child against the other two, something we continued to do for many years. It was pretty physical. Dad, and then Ross as he got older, could be competitive, and I had to step up if I was going to get any points. I’d practise on that court every day, even by myself, shooting the ball at the basket, shooting hoops. I wanted to be a guard like my Dad—I can shoot like him—but I also wanted to be strong for my size like my Mum. I think I got the best of both of my parents’ respective basketball skills, and Mum and Dad helped me train, but they didn’t box me into one category as a basketballer, or as a person. Dad didn’t tell me to focus on my three-point shots outside the key, Mum didn’t say I only needed to learn how to do a turnaround jump shot (jumping and turning in the air to shoot) or insist that I prioritise my inside game. I had to learn how to do it all, and I did. They let me explore basketball as I developed, do what I wanted to do, and it paid off. Because of my height, I started off playing in teams in the centre position, where you need to be tall and strong to tap the ball away from the opposing centre in the jump-off at the start of the game. A centre also needs to be able to take the hits, to be tough.
When I was growing up, we watched US National Basketball Association (NBA), men’s basketball, it was the only basketball shown on television here at the time, and as a result I really admired American players like Michael Jordan. When you watch a NBA championship it’s amazing, the players are so athletic. Today, players like LeBron James are huge and strong, and physically just superior athletes in comparison with probably everybody. It’s magic watching them, run, dunk, play—for me it’s truly beautiful. Women basketballers aren’t usually as big as men, so are easier to shut down on court, compared with having someone like LeBron James flying over your head. There are some girls who are particularly tall and strong, but women’s basketball is a different game from men’s, it’s more about strategy and skill, and tends to be a much more tactical game as a result. As our coach, Mum was helping me and the other girls in our Albury under 12s team understand this, while at home I’d be playing against the physically stronger men in our family, trying to toughen up on both fronts.
Mum was still our coach when I started high school. We’d train at the courts in the Albury Sports Stadium—which had been built a couple of years after I was born to replace the old courts in the poultry pavilion—and we’d play there most weekends. I knew that place so well, I truly grew up there. Most of the time at training we would be practising our plays, both offensive (attacking or engaging the other team) and defensive (trying to stop the other team scoring), as well as improving the accuracy of our shooting and generally just handling the ball. I would practise shooting, especially from the free-throw line, near the top of the key, over and over. I’d spin the ball in my hand as I looked up at the basket, gather myself, control my breathing, imagine the ball going through the hoop, sense how it would feel, and then, finally, take the shot. I came to know the weight of the ball, the feel of its tough seamed surface, I knew how it would pass through the air, knew how it would feel when I caught it. I would bounce it in front of me as I walked along the road to training, until that hard, perfect ball became a part of me, an extension of myself.
When I was in year 7, my first year at Murray High School, someone asked me what I wanted to be when I left school. I told them that I would only stay at Murray High until year 10, then I would go on to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), and after that I was going to play basketball for Australia. I definitely said it, and truly believed it. I wasn’t even that good a basketballer back then, I’d missed out on teams, but I knew that was the pathway for me if I was going to be a professional basketball player.
My first two years at Murray High were tough. I hated school because I couldn’t learn in an environment where I had kids around me constantly, where I was surrounded by talking, activity. I couldn’t concentrate, I was just all over the place. It would be many years until I found a way to learn that suited me. In order to learn—whether that be a textbook or a basketball play—I must have what I need in front of me, with nothing else going on nearby, no distractions. I had difficulties learning the traditional way and I still find myself getting easily distracted. As a result, I was put in the lower classes at high school. I wasn’t completely hopeless, I managed to be an average student, but it wasn’t the best learning environment for me. If I could have been doing anything other than study, I would have.
From the age of about 11, I’d shot up in height. I’d always been taller than other girls, but by the time I was at Murray High I was heading towards 1.8 metres (6 feet) and struggled with being openly teased about it. In a lot of my adult basketball stats I’m described as 1.96 metres (6 feet 5 inches), but that’s wrong. In the US, they add inches, here I took one off. I didn’t want people to think I was as tall as I actually was, I truly thought that removing that extra inch would somehow make me more acceptable. Even now I think my height can be intimidating to others. I can certainly feel overwhelmed and awkward when I’m around people taller than I am, so I can only imagine how shorter people feel around me.
Being so much taller than everyone else at high school, I ‘shut down’ and tried to ignore stares and comments. I felt awkward and out of place. I got called names, lots of names, about anything—my height, even the whole girl thing. I was called a slut, which the boys thought was an acceptable thing to say to girls, and I even remember being called gay, which back then was considered probably the worst slur for a boy or a girl. I’m not sure we even knew what it meant, just that it was used as an insult. It’s so insignificant now, but I remember being in that moment, being tormented, feeling shame and anger.
I was struggling, but I would never have considered opening up to Mum and Dad, I didn’t want to appear weak, and so coped in my own way. I always arrived at school on an early bus, and as a result I was isolated from my friends. Being so young and tall, I was an easy target. When we pulled up at school, I’d get off the bus and go and sit in the toilets and hide, waiting until my friends arrived—I didn’t want to hear or deal with any hurtful remarks. I had some teachers who probably knew I was struggling, one in particular, Mrs Crossley, was my roll call and English teacher. Every day that I walked into her class I felt better just seeing her, I felt that someone was there for me. But at one stage she became ill and missed a bit of school, and I really missed seeing her, and her gentle presence until she returned.
Being in a classroom was the worst part of my day, but when I was home or on my way to the basketball stadium, I was fine. I think my parents knew something was going on, growing up they would have had to deal with the same sort of remarks about being tall themselves. I also think that’s why my parents encouraged me to play basketball, they knew I had trouble fitting in, even though I didn’t talk about it.
I don’t think the bullying I went through was any worse than what others suffered, but the way I ended up responding to it was. I would come home and self-harm, cutting my arms, legs, whatever I could reach. I couldn’t block out the bullying and how it was making me feel, so I think I was finding a physical outlet by cutting myself, doing something to hurt myself. I still have the scars, and that’s where I have some of my tattoos, I tried to cover the marks—I only did it a few times, the scars aren’t terrible. I think for my parents, reading something like this will be upsetting, but it’s not their fault. I hid it from them, I certainly didn’t tell them. I’m not saying this to make them feel bad at all, it was just a part of my life and a part of my story that helped shape me, it doesn’t define me by any means. When we’re young I think we do whatever we can to cope, because we don’t have the emotional tools to deal with the way we’re feeling.
In retrospect, my high school years were the hardest of my life. But even though I would never wish to go back and relive that time, it made me who I am. I just had to get through that period, and once I’d done that, it was over. The bullying eventually stopped completely, it was a phase. The minute I found my place, which was playing basketball, I was accepted and I was fine. Now I’d say to kids going through that stage in life, find an outlet, play sport as much as you can, even if you don’t think you’re good enough, find a physical outlet.
I continued not to react at school to the bullying, but then one morning I did. This guy was teasing me, calling me names, I can’t even remember what names, but I walked over to him and physically pushed him away, and got into him. I was just a girl responding to a name, but I was so angry, I remember thinking, ‘Can you just let me get through this morning without saying something, anything!’ It wasn’t just him, it was that time, not being able to find my identity, not being accepted for who I was, that was brutal. Those early high school years are your formative years, you don’t know how to deal with your emotions, you don’t know how to compartmentalise, you don’t know anything, you just try and live and figure it out day by day. People ask me now how I compartmentalise so well—it’s easy, it’s how I’ve lived my life. If I’ve struggled with anything, I’ve been able to put it into a box, and then go and play basketball at my best, and that’s how I ultimately dealt with the bullying, that’s the lesson I took forward from that time. I feel so sorry for teenagers who are subjected to bullying, and especially today with smart phones, they can never escape it. For me back then, my home and basketball were my escape.
My ultimate reaction to the bullying was to become harder, although it didn’t stop the bullies from bullying. It made me tougher, angrier, as I always felt like I was being attacked. I became rebellious, and my parents responded by taking me out of school sport at Murray High. I was only allowed to play basketball for Albury. I used to watch the sport presentations at the end of each school year and feel I should have been getting those awards and sporting blues, so I guess it was pretty good punishment. I also think it gave my parents a bit of relief, in the sense that if they’d allowed me to play school sport I would have been doing every team sport available to me at the time. It was certainly getting to that point prior to Mum and Dad putting their foot down.
I loved playing basketball so much that I was out on our court at home mucking around and shooting whenever I had spare time. It felt great to be good at something. I wasn’t always trying to improve my game, I just loved doing it. Mum and Dad were still good players back then, Mum had a beautiful shot, she could consistently knock down baskets from outside the key, so even when I thought I was better than her, she’d simply knock down a three-pointer. She was really smooth like that, and so was Dad. Basketball was probably the only thing I truly cared about outside my parents and my family. Basketball made me feel like I belonged.