When my schooling finished, I was on the Olympic athlete program in preparation for the upcoming Sydney Olympics, and I’d also signed up with the Canberra Capitals WNBL team for the next season. I moved out of the AIS dorms and rented an apartment in Belconnen with fellow AIS player Deanna Smith. I remember the first time I had to pay my own bills, that was a bit of a shock, that and the feeling they always seemed due.
Around the corner from our apartment was the iconic Tilley’s Devine Café Gallery. When I was still living at the AIS some of the team would go and see live shows there, but I didn’t really find it until after I moved out. It was a great place to go for a coffee, a drink, a meal or to see live music. We used to enjoy the odd glass of wine in those days, like most Aussie school leavers who reach drinking age. Tilley’s would be open after games, after practice, had great food, and it just became our social hangout. Once I found that place I spent most of my down time there.
Tilley’s became a sponsor of the Capitals, and it was where the whole team went after games. I’d been going there for about eight months before I met the owner, Paulie. I was really intrigued to know how Tilley’s had come about, how she’d built it up. Paulie had started Tilley’s in the early 1980s. A single mum with two kids, she decided to build a place that was safe for women. So at a time when Canberra had exclusive men’s clubs, the only way a man could get into Tilley’s was with a woman. Then men started complaining—which was strange, as women certainly weren’t complaining about not getting into the exclusive men’s clubs.
By the time I found the place, Paulie’s kids were out of the nest and she worked there all the time. She’s still a workaholic. She’d be there at six in the morning and still be there until the last shift finished. I spent so much time at Tilley’s that Paulie and I became good friends, and we would talk and have these great conversations. She’s such a fascinating person, because of what she’s achieved, and what she believes, and I think that was the most important part of our friendship. We would enjoy a coffee or wine together and talk, and there was something that really drew me to those conversations.
Paulie made me aware of issues outside my cocoon of basketball, and that was what I needed in my life at that time, otherwise I think I would have become the most ignorant human being to walk this earth. I was quite uninformed about everything going on around me, whether it be political, social or economic, I didn’t have the education behind me to understand it. I was an athlete, I didn’t really think outside of being an athlete. Athletes spend so much time in their own head, thinking about themselves, and not about what is going on in the world around them, and I don’t believe I was evolving into an aware, smart or good individual. Having Paulie enter my life at that time definitely opened my eyes, and I saw things I wouldn’t ever have noticed before.
I was so young, so self-centred. I’d talk with Paulie a lot about myself, and I became fairly open about everything going on in my life. At one stage, I had an agent who’d call and order me around, and it got to the point where it really upset me, and the thought finally occurred to me, ‘You can’t talk to me like that just because I’m young!’. Paulie broke that behaviour down for me, talking about power and control so I could comprehend it all. She could identify things like that and I couldn’t, she would explain and I’d think about it, how it would pertain to the feelings I was having. It was impressive, it taught me to identify an issue and then step back and critically figure out how I was going to deal with it, instead of shutting down and not thinking about it. Well, most of the time. She also helped me find a bit of power in myself that I didn’t realise I had. The relationship between myself and that agent finally broke down, and I actually walked away, which was a huge thing for me. She helped me to figure out how to work through relationships with people I couldn’t walk away from, even though I’m still not terribly good at navigating those relationships where I feel I’m being pressured. Paulie helped me grow up, she was a large part of my development as a person.
She also gave me an appreciation and awareness of social issues, of the difference between men and women socially, of inequality between the sexes—back then it wasn’t being highlighted or talked about as much as it is now. Paulie was so passionate in her beliefs about gender inequality that in the beginning I would think, ‘Come on, what you’re saying is too much’. It wasn’t until I started to live it, that I came to understand it. I learnt a lot from her about feminism and gender inequality. I took in everything that she told me, and it blew me away.
I really gravitate towards strong personalities, and Paulie is certainly one of them. When relationships of mine have broken up, I’ve always gone to her to talk about it. She’s an ear, a mentor and a good friend. We can say whatever we like to each other, our conversations are an open playing field—she tells me if I’m doing the wrong thing, and she’s probably the only person, other than my parents, who can do that. Paulie was someone I could talk to throughout my career, and she’s a great friend even to this day.
I bought my first house in the suburb of O’Connor on Paulie’s advice and lived there when I was playing in Canberra. I bought it when house prices were quite low and set about renovating it. Looking back, the renovations were terrible, if you can image an 18 year old renovating. I put in blue carpet and painted the walls blue as well. I thought it was amazing, but it was truly horrible. Luckily it was in a good location, and location, as I learnt, was key in real estate. I sold it two years later, just after the property boom started, and made about $200 000. Paulie’s advice was once again right on the mark.
There would be times ahead when I wished I’d remembered all she’d taught me.