I’d never wanted to retire from injury, no athlete does, so as much as I wanted the fairytale ending, it rarely happens. There really is no such thing as a fairytale ending, unless it’s leaving after a FIBA World Championship or the Olympics and you’re on a winning high, or retiring at your peak—that would be perfect, but if you retire then, you’re also giving three or four years of your career away, which you’ll never get back.
I always wanted to keep going, to keep pushing my body. I was injured a lot throughout my career and always felt I had further things to do, more games to play, but in the end I had to be realistic. My body had given up, even when I hadn’t wanted to. At my physical peak, I’d been at my emotional worst, and then when I started to feel good again mentally, that was when my body began to break down. Perhaps that was why it was a little bit harder for me when it finally happened.
There is a very physical side effect of playing sport, and then stopping. There are highs and lows almost every day playing competitively, you get used to that, your body gets used to it. Your body releases huge amounts of adrenaline when you play, and when you stop you have to come down. Towards the end of my career I was on constant painkillers and they would tire me out, which meant I’d often sleep through those ‘down’ phases. As I mentioned before, after seasons overseas, or major tournaments, I’d come home and immediately go down with a cold or the flu. I wouldn’t get out of bed for a week, but I’d eventually wake up out of it and start moving once more, and the cycle would begin all over again—I’d have to get ready for another season, and start preparing myself physically and mentally. There is always that come-down period, and it’s very real.
It had been my lifelong dream to play for Australia at the Olympics, and after experiencing the highs of that, everything else feels downhill. You think, ‘I’ll never feel that again, I’ll never have that elation again’. I guess that was why one last Olympics was such a motivator to try as hard as I did to come back. It’s like preparing for a one-off big event, with an extended period of time leading up to it, and then when it’s all over, you come down. At the end of a career, it’s so much worse, that down is permanent. Your entire life as you know it just stops, who you identify yourself as comes to an abrupt end. When you play overseas, you’re paid to play and that’s your job, it quickly becomes your life, your identity, but I think that makes the leaving even harder, you don’t have an alternative.
The minute I retired I wasn’t an athlete anymore. When it’s over, it’s done, and normally you’re a bit worse for wear physically. Emotionally, I’m lucky I came out better than when I was playing.
After the knee replacement, I was on bed rest for a month at least. I wasn’t entirely bedridden—I was still pushing my knee so that I could find my comfort level moving around again. But I was on a lot of prescription drugs, and I didn’t want to do anything.
I got a call out of the blue in late April 2016 from Guy Molloy, head coach of the Melbourne Boomers, saying some people from their WNBL club would like to meet me about a job offer. I knew Melbourne had been struggling, and didn’t know if they were going to be in the league that year. Guy and two board members, Tony Hallam and Jim Avgerinos, came to my home and asked if I’d be interested in working for the Boomers and I immediately said yes, no hesitation. I needed to have something in my life that I could strive towards, I’d almost finished university, and I needed something to get me out of the house and moving again. It was all too easy to stay at home, stay in bed, but I thought ‘No, if I’m going to do this I have to get out there’, so I did. I got out of bed and got my life back together, thank goodness.
Then one morning in May I woke up and decided I needed to get off all these drugs, I needed to get off them now. I was drinking a lot of alcohol after the retirement, and I thought ‘I cannot do this anymore, no matter how much pain it will cause, I have to get off it’, and I did. I was in so much pain when I was training and playing that I couldn’t have stopped the painkillers any earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to move if I hadn’t been on them. I was still taking the antidepressants, which had helped me through that time as well. I’ve talked about the roller coaster of sport, you have huge highs and lows, and the antidepressants evened that out for me. I can do that on my own now without sport, but when you’re coming off those highs of playing or training, your endorphins do go crazy. I’d get really frustrated if someone called me and needed something from me when all I wanted to do was concentrate on my sport, concentrate on me. I guess it’s all a part of learning about yourself and growing, and no doubt there was a lingering dependency on all that crap.
I’m really lucky that I found the strength to stop taking prescription drugs and antidepressants when I did. It showed me that I had a lot more strength than I thought I did. I just got my shit together, stopped taking pills. It wasn’t easy though. Mum was with me, thankfully, when I was coming down off everything. I suddenly stopped all the tablets without consulting anyone and it was really tough, but I’d made a decision and went with it. Honestly, there were days where I thought I would have to take something, there were days where I was shivering uncontrollably, it was shocking. But knowing myself and who I am, I had to do it my own way. I’ve always been an all or nothing type person. It probably wasn’t my brightest idea, but it was the best thing I ever did in hindsight. I’ve never been clearer.
One of the drugs, Lyrica, was particularly hard to come off. I’d been on it about a year at that stage, and I couldn’t understand why it was so difficult to stop taking it. I decided to Google it, and discovered that it’s a very strange drug. Apparently, it affects chemicals in your brain that send pain across your nervous system, which is why it was originally prescribed to treat issues with the sciatic nerve in my back, as well as the pain in my hamstring and my knee. But in Europe, it’s also used to treat anxiety, and coming off it was really difficult. I was on Valium as well, Endone for the pain, I don’t want to seem like I was a drug addict, but there were other painkillers, sleeping tablets and antidepressants, I was on quite a lot.
Coming off the antidepressants was very similar to coming off Lyrica. I’d get really tingly, have heavy sweats, I mean a lot of sweat, and became very anxious. But I made it to the other side, with Mum beside me. I was so fortunate to get through that, to know that there was an end, whether it was a week away or whatever, I just knew I could get through that period, I had to, so I could move forward with my life.
My role with the Melbourne Boomers is as the team’s assistant general manager, and my boss is the general manager, Justin Nelson. Justin, with the help of a board of very savvy businessmen and businesswomen, took that club from being about to fold to a complete turnaround in one year. It was unbelievable to watch. He did it with the backing of the new ownership group and some very inspired people. I’m not sure having my name helped that much, there’s only so much a name can do, especially a retired one. Justin’s an absolute go-getter, very smart and a really good person. I’m still learning from him every single day, he never stops, he just goes and goes and goes, and it’s brilliant. I don’t know how anyone can be that driven, but he’s so passionate about the team and I think, for me, there could not have been a better transition out of sport into business.
I work with signing players, game-day operations, ticketing, memberships, a fairly broad list of duties, but that’s where women’s basketball is at in this country, you only have a few people running an entire professional club. People sometimes ask me if being around the team makes me miss basketball, but no it doesn’t. I don’t miss stretching, warming up, it all just hurt towards the end, I certainly don’t miss that. My body was ready to retire, I was ready to retire. I was one of the lucky athletes, because I had something to go on with, I was offered an incredible job, almost straight after the knee replacement. And I had my beautiful home, too. I’m so fortunate that basketball set me up to a point where I didn’t have to rely on anything or anyone post-sport. A lot of athletes don’t have that, and that’s the hardest thing, there’s no transitional program for them, there’s nothing to help them out.
To be honest, back when I was 20 I wouldn’t have wanted someone to say to me, ‘It’s a short career, it will be over before you know it, be prepared for it, plan for after’. I think someone may have even said that to me, but I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it. I’d have been like, ‘Yeah, right’. But now there is some awareness about what happens to athletes post-career, that a career doesn’t last forever. Mine, as for all athletes, definitely did not.
After I finally made my way through the various prescription drug withdrawals, I was still drinking, but then I had the perfect reason to stop, a wonderful surprise. I was pregnant again. I was really scared, and as usual, thought the worst. Since my miscarriage and endometriosis diagnosis I’d really thought in the back of my mind I couldn’t get pregnant, so I was over the moon to find out I was, but also cautious and protective. My parents were happy, they were really happy, but Mum was cautious as well, telling me to keep in mind that it was early days and not to get my hopes up. After what I’d been through, they didn’t want me to fall back, go back into that dark, dismal place.