Beck's Tasmanian-bound

Tall Fern Stella Beck was back home in Eastbourne recently, enjoying some down time after a strenuous 2018 season playing for the Townsville Fire in the prestigious Women’s National Basketball League in Australia.

Before that competition ramps up again for 2019, Stella, also the 2018 St Mary’s College (San Francisco) female athlete of the year, will spend the next five months playing for the Launceston Tornadoes in a new off-season Australian league, NBL1, with teams primarily out of Melbourne.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” says Stella. “Really great people here in Launceston, a small city with a friendly and welcoming culture.”

With the Launceston Tornadoes losing four of their highest profile players from last year, Stella, 23, will be expected to help with leadership of the side. It is a role she says she is looking forward to, giving the assistance back to junior players she once received herself as a freshman. She is already referred to as ‘the key Kiwi’.

With the Townsville Fire last season, Stella averaged 8.4 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists a game. “The WNBL is a really intense league,”

Stella says, “probably in the top five of all the leagues around the world. We have players who play in the American WNBA and in Europe come to play in the WNBL, so the competition is at a really high level and is intense from start to finish.”

WNBL aside, it is a big year for the Tall Ferns and Stella says she’d love to be involved again this season.

“We have a massive year with the Olympic qualifiers coming up in early 2020,” she says. “To even qualify for the olympic qualifiers, we have to compete really well in the Asia Cup and if we do that we get a chance to set foot on the biggest stage. So 2019 is really important for us as a program. It will be tough and demanding and I hope to be a part of that challenge.”

Top women's sport, especially football, has made big inroads in recent times with major television /streaming coverage worldwide. Is Basketball doing enough to help promote their women?

Stella says that in her opinion there are improvements to be made to enable the sport to realise its full potential. “The men are much more advanced in this area,” she says, “and it feels like the women are somewhat left behind.

We could use more support, but I do believe the people behind women’s basketball in New Zealand are of the utmost quality and doing the best they can to help us succeed with the little support they get.”

The NBL1 season opens for Stella and the Tornadoes on March 30th against the Southern Sabres from Cheltenham, Victoria.