Basketball has always been a massive part of my life, from as young as I can remember. My mom, Martha played university basketball and was officiating basketball for as long as I can remember. I myself, started on my first basketball team at the age of 5. It was a coed, competitive team and I was the only girl on the team. That experience taught me from a young age that I could practice as hard as I chose to, and learn from those around me as much as I chose to, to be as good as I could possibly be. However, there were going to be some things that challenged me on the way and I needed to push myself through those things to get better.
I continued playing "up" and in my grade 5 year I was asked to play on our grade 7 junior high team. So, I was lucky to be able to complete 5 years of junior high basketball. In 7th grade I tried out for the Manitoba Provincial Team for the first time and was selected as a member of the U15 Midget Women's team, at the age of 12. I played with the provincial team up until my grade 11 year and was able to participate in Western Canada Games while a part of this program. I was also a member of Basketball Canada's Centre for Performance for 2 years during my time on the provincial team.
In my 12th grade year, I played with the Winnipeg Internationals club team, and played for one of my biggest mentors I have ever had in playing and coaching, Joe Dicurzio. With the Internationals we would regularly travel down and compete in the states against some of the very talented teams down there. This team really helped to shape my confidence as a player, as I had been struggling with injuries and mental aspects of the game prior to joining and I credit this experience with giving me the confidence to try out for the university team.
My final years of basketball were spent with the Brandon Bobcats in 2010-2012 seasons. It was always my goal to compete at the university level, so this was a very big accomplishment in my basketball career. I was selected as rookie of the year in my first season with the team, although it was a rough year of basketball for myself and the team. The following year was also a tough year, paired with the teachers strike. I made the difficult decision to take a step back from playing and take a couple years off to figure out what I wanted to do.
In these years off, I became a mother to a beautiful daughter, Marley and amazing son Rory who will both be joining us in the program! I am so excited to be able to assist in bringing development to Brandon and hope to bring joy to the kids through basketball the way that it brought me so much joy throughout my whole life.