Tall Ferns Captain goes for balance

Eastbourne basketballer and Tall Ferns captain Stella Beck is having some rare down time, travelling in Italy following the Tall Ferns’ matches in the Asia Cup last month. The women beat the Philippines 83 – 78 but lost to Japan 52 – 88 and Australia 59-81, taking the bronze.

The Tall Ferns are working to qualify for the Olympics next year, “which will be a dream of mine completed, and amazing for the young girls to see it as a reality,” Stella says.

“We came in with a goal and we’ve achieved that goal,” says the 27-year-old, who began playing for the Tall Ferns while still at Hutt Valley High School. As captain, she still remembers what it was like to be one of the younger new ones and works hard at making sure the previously uncapped players are happy and having fun, even though they’re up against highly professional players from teams such as China and South Korea.

“My advice to young players is to make sure you enjoy it – sport of any kind should always be fun,” she says. “You will develop, learn and perform much better if you are enjoying yourself.”

After living a high-pressure lifestyle playing fulltime for some years Stella took on a day job, working at the Beehive while playing at weekends. With a BSc in Psychology and Neuroscience, from a Californian university, she wishes she’d made a career outside of sport rather than playing full-time, including across the Tasman.

No longer working at the Beehive, she’s still playing basketball “just not year round anymore. It was really tough to step back from professional sport but it wasn’t filling enough cups for me. I struggled with the amount of pressure I put on the sport alone.

“Now I have a more balanced life and more freedom to explore – including backpacking and tramping in some beautiful places in South America – so I have a lot more enthusiasm when I play.”

She says New Zealand has an amazing new professional league going with Tauihi, and feels very lucky that it supports her lifestyle. The fivestrong Tauihi league includes the Tokomanawa Queens, of which she is captain, and last year they won the inaugural season of the Women’s Tauihi league.

Stella is travelling at the moment but when she returns will play for the Tokomanawa Queens again. “I will find some work but I’m in a bit of an in-between phase.”

The Asia Cup, played at Olympic Park in Sydney, was the first phase of Olympic Qualifications and the Tall Ferns qualified by coming in the top four. Next, they go to a tournament “sometime in February – not sure when”, and if they come in the top three of four teams there, they go to the Paris 2024 Olympics.