Women’s basketball in Australia was in the spotlight after the Sydney Olympics, and the Australian team had jumped into third ranking in the world behind the US and Russia. I think I’d played well individually, with an average of 15.9 points and 8.4 rebounds per game, funnily enough my best game being the final against the US, with a match high of 20 points and 12 rebounds.
My agent had been approached by the WNBA in the US and I was asked to their draft. The draft is held annually, with all the WNBA teams able to pick players from a pool of up-and-coming talent, mostly American college graduates—but occasionally international players are also invited. Most college players are about 21 or 22 years old by the time they’ve finished their studies, and to be asked to the draft is a rite of passage for any young basketballer, an honour every college player aims for. The US was where the serious play happened. In the WNBA draft, there is a strict payment structure, underpinned by collective bargaining between the players and the WNBA, giving teams who don’t have as many strong, highly paid players a chance to get the better draft choices.
I was in a haze. I didn’t know that much about it, and my agent had also been talking with an Italian team who wanted me to play with them in the Euro-League. The Italian offer was worth about AU$600 000 a season, whereas first pick of the US draft earned about US$52 000, but the WNBA was the place to play and the direction I was steered towards.
I’d had a break after the Olympics and over Christmas, and was enjoying being back playing with the Capitals. We came second in the WNBL finals, behind the Sydney Flames, in the 2000/2001 season, and I would have been perfectly happy staying in Canberra. I felt comfortable there, I was in the WNBL and the Opals, I had my own little world and I was fine with that. I had my own safe space, there was no anxiety. Being drafted would mean moving to the US and playing in the world’s best basketball competition professionally. I’d been to the US a few times already, touring with both the junior and senior teams, but if I was picked, that would mean living there for months on end. A strange country, new people, and doing it on my own—I would be out of my comfort zone, well and truly. Deep down I didn’t want to do it, but felt that I had to, because that’s just what you did. If I wanted to be a professional basketballer, I had to be in the WNBA, and now was my chance.
In April, suppressing my trepidation, I boarded a plane with Mum and travelled to New Jersey for the 2001 draft. My agent at the time had met with the WNBA, and they’d suggested I might get into the top three, the three players most wanted by the teams, which was daunting, and created an additional fear—would I really be good enough? Mum hadn’t been on a plane with me since I was 12, when my grandfather passed away and we had to fly to Sydney to meet Dad, and I was so glad she was there. To make my anxiety about flying worse, the flight over was horrendous, lots of turbulence, which was never good for me. I was so nervous about going to the draft, and scared. Where would I end up? I truly was in two minds, it was exciting to be asked, but there was such a large part of me that didn’t want to be there.
My sponsor Nike picked Mum and me up in a limousine from the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and took us to the Empire State Building for a bit of sightseeing. We even went into a McDonald’s drive-through in that great big limo. Nike were unbelievable, talk about glitz and the glamour, I went from being this country kid who played basketball in Australia to being driven around New York in a stretch limo, getting whatever I wanted for 24 hours. Mum and I finally arrived at our hotel room, completely jetlagged, and all we wanted was a coffee, but I didn’t know how to use the percolator (still don’t). Instant coffee became my friend from then on, because it’s the same in all countries, although it still tastes better in Australia.
That night before the draft I just started crying, I was so upset and scared. Mum stayed up with me all night, we played cards, watched movies, and as a result we were both zombies by the time we were driven to the draft on the WNBA bus the next day. We arrived at the venue and they put makeup on me and tried to pretty me up for the cameras, as pretty as one can be feeling jetlagged and nervous. If I went number one it was a big deal, I’d be called first, out of all the girls—college graduates, foreigners, everybody—and it would be televised on national TV.
We were sitting at a table and they called my name first, and then announced Seattle Storm had drafted me. I was so overcome I turned and kissed Mum, burying my head into her shoulder, not wanting to leave her side, before going up on to the dais. They handed me my number one jersey, which I held up for the press to photograph. All I can really remember is feeling completely overwhelmed. I was honoured to be number one, but I was so unsure about my future and the path I was about to undertake. I had no idea where Seattle even was, I thought it was on the other side of the country. I knew nothing about it, other than seeing the Tom Hanks movie Sleepless in Seattle, and now I was going to live and work there.
Mum and I flew to Seattle briefly to meet the coach and team, before our flight back to Australia. When we arrived in Seattle we were picked up by yet another limousine, which had Savage Garden playing in the back, and I remember thinking ‘They clearly have no clue what music I am into’. We met Karen Bryant, CEO of the Storm, and my new coach, Lin Dunn, an eccentric and brilliant woman who I still have a lot of respect for. They took us to a major league baseball game, the Seattle Mariners were playing the Anaheim Angels. We had box seats, and as they flashed my face up on the big screen I was introduced to the 40 000 fans at the game as the city’s new star basketballer. As if I wasn’t nervous enough already. I was on the front page of their newspapers, on the TV news, greeted and welcomed at restaurants or when we went shopping, it was incredible, I kept thinking, ‘How am I going to do this, by myself?’. Anything big that comes into my life, my initial reaction is that I can’t do it, it’s too much for me, the worst-case scenario always pops into my head, and that’s what it was like going into the WNBA.
As I headed back to Australia to pack up my life, all I remember thinking was ‘Can I really do this?’. I didn’t have a choice, I had a responsibility to my new team.