I celebrated my 21st birthday twice in 2002. The first, just before the WNBA season in Canberra, with my friends from all over, at a party held at Tilley’s. My second 21st was after the WNBA season had finished. My parents organised a party in Albury and all my family from Sydney came down, all my aunties and uncles who I’d grown up with, Mum and Dad’s best friends, Tom Maher came down for it, anyone who was a special figure in my life was there, it was lovely.
After the WNBA season ended in August, I was back with the Opals and we travelled to China in September 2002 for the 14th FIBA World Championship. We’d taken bronze at the last world championships in Germany four years earlier, and were keen for another medal.
Jan Stirling had come in to replace Tom Maher as coach, and Timmsy, Robyn Maher and Shelley Sandie had all retired, there were plenty of new young faces in the team, it was a new era for the Opals, and for me. Tom had moved on from coaching the Opals, and was now coaching us at the Capitals, with Graffy taking a year-long sabbatical. I’d come through the Opals with Tom, I knew him. Jan was tough but in a different way from Tom, and we had a personality clash. I’d become well known in basketball, it was almost like, ‘this is the new coach of the Australian team, and you’ve got this young superstar who thinks she knows best’. We had to get on, I wasn’t going anywhere, and she’d just been appointed and she wasn’t going anywhere, but it was a battle of wills.
Playing at the world championships was huge, but I was suffering from shin splint pain, which is common in athletes and is often caused by the tendons and muscles that run the length of the shin pulling on the bone and creating inflammation. I’d suffered with shin splints since I was a child and it was always rather painful. The best treatment is rest, but being in the Opals I still wanted to play on it. We beat Spain and Argentina, but in the game against Japan, Jan only had me on court for 13 minutes and I felt like she didn’t have faith in me.
Brownie was Jan’s assistant coach, and he organised a meeting with me and the other assistant coach to talk about what was going on. I was angry, I felt we’d had little preparation before the tournament as a team. I’d been in the Opals five years and grown from a kid into a young woman, and all of a sudden, all the people who were closest to me had left. I don’t think I realised at the time how much of an impact they had had on me, and I was finding that without Tom being there it was different, and I’ve always been resistant to change. Brownie calmed me down in that meeting, Jan was the coach and I had to work with her, whether I initially liked her decisions or not. So, I did. Some things aren’t always perfect—our coach–player style was rocky at the start and only developed over time, but our personalities and friendship also developed, and by the end of it there was mutual respect. That’s really all you can ask for in any professional relationship.
We made it through our first group with three straight wins and went on to play and beat Yugoslavia and China, before being beaten by the Olympic bronze medallists Brazil, by just one point. We still made the finals, where we downed France and were in the semis against the US. If we won, we would be in the final against either Russia or South Korea, depending who won their match. If we lost, we would be playing for bronze.
In the semi-final, we led twice by four points in the second quarter, and the American coach kept Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Leslie on court for virtually the entire 40 minutes of the game. I was fouled out early, and three of us were playing with injuries, but we hung in there and gave them a scare, eventually losing by 15 points to earn the right to play Korea for the bronze. We then beat Korea by 31 points to take out bronze, the second time the Opals had won a medal at a world championship. I was named in the World All-Star team. Lisa Leslie was named MVP after the US won against Russia 79–74 and took the gold. I led the tournament with a 23.1 point average per game, my highest being 33 points in the game against France.
We came back to Australia, and started the 2002/2003 WNBL season. After returning from the world championships I’d had X-rays to try and understand my ongoing peroneal pain, only to find out that rather than just rolling my ankle in training six months earlier at the beginning of the WNBA season, I’d actually fractured it. Because it hadn’t healed properly, it had started pulling on my fibula, the smaller bone in the lower leg, which had led to the stress fractures in my right leg. This wouldn’t have happened if I’d rehabbed the ankle injury properly. Only rest would help cure it. Tom was coaching the Capitals, but on the eve of the first game against the Sydney Flames in early October, I was ordered to rest for three to four weeks so my injury could heal.
It was frustrating sitting out the first four games, and I really enjoyed playing again after the break. Tom complained in the media that I was being targeted, and at one point the referees were not calling fouls against me, but it wasn’t going to slow the Caps down. We made it into the preliminary finals, to be played in Canberra against the Townsville Fire. We had a 16-point deficit in the first half and were still down nine points with five minutes remaining. I managed to score the next eight points, and we were trailing just two points with 20 seconds left when I made another shot for the basket. It went in but I was fouled by an opposition player. The score was level 67–67 as I went to the free-throw line. As I spun the ball in my hand I pictured myself shooting the perfect shot, and in my head I saw it float into the rim, I took the shot and it flew straight through. It was an incredible game, and I think I burst into tears after we won. It was a game to remember, I scored 38 points, had 21 rebounds and nine blocks, but everyone played well. We were straight into the finals, waiting to see who won the semi-final between Townsville and the Sydney Flames.
On a hot February afternoon, in a packed AIS arena, the final took place against the Flames. Sydney led by 12 points at half-time and it felt like Sydney had ‘double teamed’ me (put two defensive players on me instead of one) to try and slow me down, but that left openings for other players as they stepped up. At the start of the third quarter, after a succession of three-pointers, the Flames’ lead blew out to 17 points, but the Caps turned that around with a 16–0 run to get us back into the game. The Flames had a two-point lead going into the fourth. With just five minutes left, we hit the lead for the first time since the third minute of the game, before Sydney downed a three-pointer, with just 80 seconds left. I shot a basket, and then Kristen got a free throw and we hit the lead, the score 68–66 before we fouled my fellow Opal and Sydney player Belinda Snell with just 2.7 seconds left, giving the Flames the opportunity to tie the game. Belinda only downed one of her free throws before Kristen was fouled and got a free throw, which she sank. Final score, Capitals 69, Flames 67. What a game. The Capitals had won their third WNBL title.
It was Tom’s seventh WNBL title, he only coached the Capitals that one year, before becoming head coach of the New Zealand National Women’s Basketball team. I took out my third WNBL MVP and was top scorer of the season. As winners of the WNBL in the 2002/2003 season, the Capitals were asked to play at the inaugural FIBA Women’s World League, to be played in October 2003 between basketball clubs from around the world who’d all won their national championships. The Capitals were going to Russia after the next WNBA season.