Mum's the Word

I wasn’t going to write this blog. Not because Mother’s Day has already passed (which it has) or because I don’t love my mum immensely (because I do) or because I don’t think she deserves her own entry (because she does) but because it meant I wouldn’t be able to send it to her to edit before I shared it.

Mum is my editor. She’s also my publicist. And my teacher. And my coach. And my counsellor. And my best friend. She’s the first person I call when I have something exciting to share. Or when I have a problem. Or when I need advice on something. Or when I’m stuck in peak hour traffic and need a distraction to help pass the time.

Now, my dad is also many of those things (except editor or publicist) but there’s something about a mother/daughter relationship that results in three phone calls a day and hour long conversations. Or maybe that’s just because we both love to talk.

Mum is a journalist by trade and has been my idol for as long as I can remember. Whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up I would answer, “a journalist, just like my mum.” I’d carry around a clipboard and interview my parents and siblings and have now become notorious for conducting “20 questions” whenever I meet someone new. I can honestly say I would not be able to call myself an “author” if it wasn’t for Mum. She’s the one who encouraged me to finish writing ‘Grace on the Court’ and the one who pushed me to try to get it published. She’s the one who edited it cover to cover and gave me detailed feedback and helped me put together storylines. I never submit a piece of work or write a single thing without sending it to Mum first. She’s my muse, and my safety blanket and I honestly don’t know what I would do without her.

Like my dad, Mum also ignited my love for sport from a young age. She is the most competitive person I have ever met. And that’s including my Swifts teammates. She hates losing. Whether it’s an argument, a game of scrabble or a tennis match, she’s not satisfied with anything less than winning. I truly do sympathise with anyone who gets seated next to Mum at a Swifts, Glenelg or SHOCs game…

Over the Christmas break I filled in for Mum’s tennis team (where the average age is 55+) thinking I’d enjoy a leisurely hit on a Saturday afternoon. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Our game went to a tie-breaker (at 9-9) and I was honestly more nervous than I was for a game of Suncorp Super Netball. I didn’t think I’d be fed or have a place to sleep that night if we didn’t come away with the win. Thankfully, after being yelled at by Mum to “just stay on my side”, we took the game 12-10 and I breathed a sigh of relief that our relationship would remain intact. Looking back now, to have been able to play doubles with my mum is probably one of the most special memories we have shared, despite the fact that an almost-60-year-old showed me up.

While my brothers and I love to pay Mum out about how competitive she is, it is one of her greatest traits. She is one of the strongest, bravest and most courageous people I have ever met. If you were to scan a room at a party, you’ll always find Mum surrounded by a group of people (most likely men) caught in a heated debate over some sort of issue. The issue could be as serious as politics or religion or as mundane as a game of football or netball but her passion will always be the same. It almost caused my dad to break up with her when they first started dating as he thought all his friends would hate the fact that she always argued with them and wanted to be involved in everything. She would kick the footy with them in the backyard, force them to let her ski behind the boat and outdrink them all at night. When he mentioned this to his friends, they pretty much told him “if you don’t marry her then we will” and the rest is history. I guess that’s where I get my inner-tomboy from!

I think a lot of Mum’s strength came from living in a kibbutz in Israel straight after University. As a 21-year-old, traveling halfway across the world to live with a bunch of strangers in a foreign country is a pretty gutsy thing to do. She would live rent-free in the kibbutz as long as she worked during the day. She would write home to her family about her job at a ‘factory producing the fingers for latex gloves’, explaining how weird she thought it was that they “made the fingers separately”. It wasn’t until some months later that she realised she’d actually been working in a condom factory. But I guess ignorance really is bliss, especially when you come from a Catholic family!

This sense of adventure continued throughout Mum’s life as she and Dad spent a year living in Ethiopia and traveling around the world. They were robbed of all their money, cameras and passports in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (Dad tried to run after them but had a machete pulled on him when he got close so did the sensible thing and backed off), and were scammed in Nairobi in Kenya when they tried to change money over only to be chased by a security guard and left with nothing but cut up bits of newspaper for money – nothing like a bit of character building! They then travelled throughout the Middle East, meeting an Italian couple on the border of Turkey and Syria as they too were having trouble crossing from one country to the next. After swapping stories and eating (according to Mum and Dad) “the best pasta they’d ever had”, they continued their travels together through Iraq and Jordan (and everywhere in between) before going their separate ways as Mum and Dad met up with Mum’s Mum (my Grandma) in England. They stayed in touch with the Martinucci’s (the Italian couple) and during a family trip around Europe we stayed at their home in a little village in Tuscany for Easter. Especially during times like these, I’m so grateful for these family holidays and the experiences we shared. I just hope that one day I’ll be able to meet my mum (and dad) in England after a whirlwind trip around the world!   

It’s hard living away from home but I think that it has made me cherish every moment that I get to spend with my family and not take a second for granted. I never would have played tennis with Mum if I was still living at home and we wouldn’t have spent nights playing cards or walking down the beach if I saw her all the time. And more importantly, she wouldn’t be coming to Sydney next weekend to watch me play and go to see Hamilton if we weren’t living in different cities. I guess it really is true that quality is more important than quantity!

Love you Mum!

Love Maddy xx 

Dear Diaries

As a kid, I loved keeping diaries. I went through them all: the one with the lock and key, the one with the voice password, then your traditional ‘leather bound book’. Unfortunately, I never kept them for long. I’d write about the boys I had crushes on and the friends that had been mean to me at lunchtime and then a few weeks later I’d hate the boy I had a crush on and my friends would be nice to me so I’d rip out all the pages and throw them in the bin, terrified one of my brothers would find my diary and share it with the world (I really can relate to Lara Jean from ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’). But recently I found one that still had a few pages in it. It was given to me in September 2010 as a gift from a family friend after I’d just signed with the Thunderbirds when I was 16. I was finishing up year 11 and was just about to start what was, in hindsight, probably the biggest year of my life.  

I still remember the day I found out my dream was coming true. I was leaving a check-up with my surgeon a few months after I’d had some of my meniscus taken out of my knee and was feeling pretty down. I’d been so lucky as a kid to never get injured and also rarely got sick. I’d probably missed a total of two days of school up until then. I didn’t know how to handle being injured and I hated not being able to run around with my friends and of course play netball. The netball season was over and I’d missed the end of it with my injury so when I got into my car and had a phone call from my mum telling me she’d just had a call from Jane Woodlands-Thompson, the coach of the Thunderbirds at the time, I was very confused. “That’s nice of her to check in,” I remember saying, thinking she must be asking how my rehab was going. “She called to see if you wanted to be in the Thunderbirds next season,” Mum finally said. I nearly dropped my phone. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d always dreamed of playing professional netball, writing it on school assignments and bragging when I was put in the ‘9 Thunderbirds’ class at my middle school because “that meant I’d play for them one day”. But no matter how much you want it to happen, you never really think it will come true, especially at the age of 16. 

I became very popular very quickly at school after the announcement was made. I’d always had a lot of friends but suddenly people were stopping me in the hallway to congratulate me; I’d developed the nickname ‘Tbird’, and my teachers were putting up pictures of me from the newspaper in their classrooms. Looking back, it was a pretty incredible time in my life. There was a media conference at my school, then Behind the News, a local kids news show, came to film my year 11 maths class (for a laugh check out https://www.abc.net.au/btn/classroom/netball-star/10535720) and I was a guest on Totally Wild, a kids’ animal show. At the time, I was the youngest player to ever be contracted to a professional team, so a bit of fuss was made around it all. Everything that year was new and exciting, and I relished every experience and opportunity I was given. When I read back over the entries in my diary from that first year in the Thunderbirds, it’s crazy to see how much some things have changed and how much some things have stayed the same. There are entries about 18thbirthday parties, boys, homework I was struggling with and a lotof talk about netball. 

On August 9, 2011 I wrote, “It’s mid-year exam week this week so no normal school. I’m not playing any netball at the moment because of my knee and am finding it really difficult to motivate myself to do my rehab program and other forms of exercise.” I actually had to laugh out loud reading this. Here I am, nine years later and nearly 9 months post ACL reconstruction, reading about my knee. A few pages later I write a random note about things that I have to do on Monday. There’s stuff about exam study, replying to netball emails, booking a physio appointment and then after telling myself to ‘eat healthy’ and ‘get lots of sleep’ I write in capital letters “ENJOY GAME AGAINST DIAMONDS – nothing to lose, haven’t played for 4 months. BE HAPPY – DON’T STRESS”. It’s weird how much reading those words impacted me. It was as if my 16-year-old self was telling my 26-year-old self the exact same thing at a time in my life just when I needed it most. I’ve been starting to get into more specific netball training lately and had to remind myself to stop being so hard on myself and just enjoy being back on court. I’m beginning to think I was a lot wiser all those years ago. 

It’s funny how nine years ago feels like just yesterday in some ways but a lifetime in others. In that same diary, after a few more dramatic entries about finding my love for netball again and falling in love at an intercol party, I randomly write a ‘To Do List’. While I was expecting to find a list of chores I needed to do or things I needed to buy, the list instead consisted of:

19/7/12

To Do List:

-      Sponsor a child

-      Get a drum kit

-      Get fit

-      Eat healthy

-      Delete friends off facebook

-      Throw out clothes

-      Read Richard Branson

-      Read Steve Jobbs

-      Go on a road trip

-      Write a book

-      Travel – Greek islands, Europe, America, south America, Spain

-      Camp America

-      Meet Justin Bieber or One Direction

-      Visit Sponsor child

-      Start/be on a kids show

-      Make Australian 21&Under team

While I don’t see myself achieving a lot of those goals (I think the Bieber dream is over and starting a kids show could be a little ambitious), it’s pretty humbling to know that I’ve already ticked a fair few off. I sponsored a child from Tanzania for about four years, I owned a drum kit for a total of two months (my parents couldn’t put up with the horrendous noise), I’ve been on multiple road trips and travelled to almost all the destinations I wanted to, I made the Australian 21s team and probably most significantly I wrote a book (didn’t you know?). While I still have way too many ‘friends’ on Facebook, tend to keep clothes for ten years longer than I need to and am on a constant drive to get fit and eat healthy, I’d like to think I’ve done pretty well. It makes me regret ripping all those pages out all those years ago. Who know what a thirteen-year-old me might have dreamt of doing… moving to Sydney? Captaining the Swifts? I just hope she’s proud of who I’ve turned out to be. Pardon the pun.

Until next time,

Maddy xx 

Not so off-season

Many of you might wonder what the months between the end of the Super Netball season and the beginning of preseason look like for us netballers. And many of you won’t wonder at all but I’m going to tell you anyway, sorry! My first answer is that this time varies from player to player. For some, there is little rest and the focus immediately shifts to international commitments. Others might have a few months of kicking back and relaxing and those who, like me, are injured, may end up doing a whole lot of the same thing. 

Back in the ANZ Championship days, players were only on eight-month contracts which meant that for the four other months of the year we were without our regular income and thus many players tried to find work or take on extra hours from existing jobs they held throughout the season. Now, with Suncorp Super Netball, we are fortunate enough to be on 12-month contracts and get paid all year round. But this also means we have a commitment to the club to ensure we are still staying in shape should we be lucky enough to receive more than our allowed eight weeks leave. 

In my first year at the Swifts, we had four months off between our season ending and the start of preseason so most of us who were from interstate ended up packing up and heading home to mooch off our parents and save up some money to go travelling. I did a two-week trip to Vietnam and also went to Europe over the Christmas break with my family. I’ve always loved to travel, it’s something that I have been fortunate enough to do a lot of thanks to my parents. When I was seven, my older brother was nine and my younger brother was only four, my parents took us out of school for six weeks and we travelled around Europe in a campervan. All our friends thought Mum and Dad were crazy, “the kids won’t even remember it!” they said. But we do (well parts of it, and what I don’t remember I do through photos) and it was one of the best things we ever did. “It doesn’t matter, we want to go, so the kids are coming too!” Mum and Dad replied to the sceptics. The parts of the trip I do remember include drawing pictures of superheroes with my brothers as my parents navigated their way through the French countryside with nothing but a hand-held map, cracking Easter eggs on our heads with an Italian family in Florence, Dad getting yelled at by German police officers for going the wrong way down a one-way street and feeling snow for the first time as we tobogganed down the Swiss alps. While I may not remember every detail, what I do are some of the best I’ve had and will stay with me for a lifetime.  

As kids, we would go on a family holiday almost every year. These ranged from overseas destinations like New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia and the Cook Islands to local trips to beaches and up the river. My parents always said there was no better way to spend their hard-earnt savings, and believed that experiencing different places and cultures would give us skills to help us through life and develop into good people. They have both lived in different countries around the world, from Mum volunteering in a kibbutz in Israel straight after university, to Dad working in places like Iraq and Jordan and the two of them spending a year in Ethiopia. They have inspired me to want to do my own travelling which has involved a two-month trip around Europe, six weeks in the USA, a few weeks in Sri Lanka, Bali and Vietnam as well as trips to Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and South Africa thanks to netball. The people you meet, the food you eat, and the things you learn about the world while overseas can’t be learnt in a classroom or read in a book (insert Grace on the Court plug).

My off-season this year has definitely been a little different to normal. Rehab is a full-time job. I have a new appreciation for ‘normal’ people who suffer significant injuries as rehab takes excessive amounts of time, money and effort. I’m currently doing six gym sessions (2 a day, 3 days a week), three conditioning sessions and at least one physio session a week as well as my ‘at home’ rehab exercises. So when people ask me “what have you been doing with your spare time now that you’re injured?” my answer is always “more than I did before I was injured”. Believe me, I’m not complaining. I’m so fortunate to be able to dedicate all my time and effort to rehab to ensure I come back as fit and strong as I possibly can that I empathise deeply with those who don’t have access to the support, facilities or people I do. And I can’t forget the two-week trip to Hawaii I got to sneak in between rehab sessions…

Speaking of rehab, it’s probably time for some hamstring exercises…

Until next time (and I promise next time won’t be this long),

Maddy xx

Nobody quite like Dad

With Father’s Day just around the corner, I thought it was only fitting to spend this week sharing the love for my father/dad/paps/Big T/Tone. Anyone who knows my dad knows that he is the most impatient, opinionated, short-tempered and best person you will ever meet. I feel so lucky every day to be able to call him my dad (and to be able to call him about anything I need help with…)

Growing up, Dad took every opportunity to play with us outdoors. He had my brothers and I throwing a tennis ball before we could walk and encouraged us to play any sports we could. He hated us being inside, cooped up in front of the TV or on the computer. So much so that whenever my brothers and I heard Dad’s ute pull into the driveway, we would sprint out to the backyard and pretend we’d been playing out there for hours. Because of that, I have dad to thank for where I am today. He ignited my passion in sport and taught me almost everything I know. Once netball started to get more serious for me, he would wake me up at 5:25 three times a week to drive me to training at the SA Sports Institute. He’d drop me off, walk the dog along the nearest beach in the pitch black of the cold winter, take me home, make me breakfast then take me to school. 

Despite this dedicated support, he still doesn’t know how to be a netball spectator. Anyone who has sat in his vicinity at a Swifts game will know what I mean. He treats it like an AFL match and screams at the top of his lungs for the majority of the game. He sometimes gets his references wrong, yelling “holding the ball” or “in the back”. Yet he somehow thinks he knows more about the game than I do, even though his only experience of playing is a few games of mixed netball (before he got sent off by the umpire!) He was quite the footballer in his day, something he likes to remind us of regularly. He still plays tennis every Thursday night, swims in the sea most days (rain, hail or shine) and this year climbed Machu Picchu at the ripe old age of 61 (and with a deteriorating hip). 

Dad has had a pretty incredible life. He grew up in country South Australia on a farm, the only boy amongst five children. He was scrawny and little yet loved to play sport – and apparently was good at it! Eventually he grew into a 6 foot 3 broad-shouldered bloke which helped playing centre half forward in the various Aussie Rules teams he played in. Big Tone is one of the smartest people I know (tied with Mum and just behind my brother Doug) with more general knowledge than he knows what to do with. However, as one of the younger kids in his class he struggled through year 12, and so after school he went jackerooing in Moulamein, NSW, for a year, riding horses and herding cattle. He then came back to Adelaide to attend agricultural college and in his early 20s worked in irrigation in Jordan and Iraq. After owning his own irrigation business in Australia he later spent a year with my Mum in Ethiopia on a United Nations project. Travelling has always been a real love for Dad (and Mum) which they have passed down to us kids. People thought my folks were mad when they took three kids aged 9, 7 and 4 around Europe in a campervan for six weeks. But from what I can remember, it was one of the best experiences of my life. 

There are a few stories that stand out when thinking about Dad. The first was the time he wanted my younger brother, Doug, to go down the beach so badly one morning that he told him the water had been cut off and he’d need to go for a swim instead of having a shower. Dad had been nagging Doug for weeks about him taking for granted living so close to the beach as he never spent any time there. Clearly, he had grown sick of the nagging and tried a different approach. The result was Doug enjoying a beautiful morning swim at the beach and Dad (and the rest of the family) laughing about it for weeks afterwards. 

The second is the time I had a small car accident and instead of getting a tow truck for my car like a normal person, he insisted we do it ourselves and hire a car trailer to tow the car to a crash repairer. It wasn’t the issue of money or availability of tow trucks; it was that Dad simply thought he could do it himself. He is a proud man who prides himself on being very handy and therefore shouldn’t have to get someone else to do something he could easily do himself. Without going in to detail, let’s just say the sun had begun to set by the time we finally found the right driveway with the right angle to get the car onto the trailer and figured out how to tie the car to the trailer. Let’s also just say he hasn’t tried it again since. 

But the best memories I have with Dad are the simple ones. It’s the endless hours we have spent down the beach throwing the ‘Waboba’ or trying to beat our record in ‘bat and ball’. It’s the quizzes he used to do for me and my brothers on road trips through the countryside. It’s the bedtime stories of Morris, Mildred and Molly that he would tell every night throughout our childhood. It’s the fact that I can count on him to help me for absolutely anything; whether it’s my tax, car insurance, broken air conditioners or advice on whether or not the internet man is ripping me off. It’s his famous Sunday roasts and ‘interesting’ stews. It’s him encouraging me to move to Sydney to push myself and get outside of my comfort zone. And it’s the fact that he would do absolutely anything for me. I don’t know what I’d do without him in my life, and I’m so grateful every day to call him my dad.

I know we say every day is Father’s Day, but I hope you have the best day regardless.

Love you Dad.

Love Maddy x 

Did you know I wrote a book?

Yes, I know it’s now become a running joke that I take each and every opportunity to plug my book, but can you blame me? If you can’t promote it yourself, who’s going to do it for you? I’ve learnt this the hard way and I’m now not ashamed to throw a plug around here and there. And it’s working… it now becomes a “WHAT?!” moment when someone doesn’t know I wrote a book. Because I did, you know? Grace on the Court in all good bookstores…

Writing is something that started off as a hobby and has fast become a passion and something I hope to pursue as a career post-netball. For those very few of you who haven’t heard the story of how I wrote my first book before, I’ll give you a brief (okay, long) rundown. I had always loved writing, inspired by my mum who is a journalist and English being one of my favourite subjects at school. I would write short stories and my dad would always make up bedtime stories of “Morris, Mildred & Molly” - three monkeys living in Africa. So writing and creativity was something I was brought up with. 

It wasn’t until the end of 2013 that I properly started thinking about writing a book. I had just returned from Europe after representing Australia at the 21/Under World Youth Cup and a two-month stint travelling with a good friend and had some spare time on my hands. Netball was finished for the year, I had deferred uni for the semester and I didn’t have a job.  I started playing around with the idea of Grace Parker and the Linwood Lions. Once I started writing, I couldn’t stop. I’d spend hours in my bedroom or outside in our front garden, ferociously tapping away at my keyboard. I kept it a secret at first, not telling anyone what I was doing. But it was Mum who wore me down. She kept asking and I finally caved in, giving her the first few chapters to read, bracing myself at the embarrassment of sharing my work with someone, even my mum. But to my surprise, she loved it. She was the one who suggested I try and get it published and this is when I started to get really excited. I wrote faster and more often, finishing the first copy of the manuscript in just months. 

But then there was the question - how do I get it published? I submitted it to a few different publishers’ ‘Manuscript Monday’s’ where anyone could send their work on a particular day of the month. But I never heard anything back. I half gave up, thinking it obviously wasn’t good enough to get published. But then my mum interviewed a long-lost great aunty who also happened to be a famous author (and has recently been referred to as a ‘national treasure’). Jill (or Kate Llewellyn as she’s known in the literary world) told me I needed to get an agent. Just like in sport, you need someone to represent you and sell you to the publishers. She put me in contact with someone she knew and luckily enough she liked the book and took me on board as a client. Next thing I know, I’m screaming at my computer at work one day when I received an email saying it was going to be published. It was probably one of the best days of my life. To think that something I wrote, that came from my mind, was going to be out in the world for people to read was almost impossible to imagine. 

Since Grace on the Court has been released, I’ve been overwhelmed with the response I have had from readers. While it’s not on the best-seller list (yet) and I’m still waiting on the call up to make it into a movie, just seeing young girls with the book in their hand gives me the greatest sense of achievement and pride. And it’s even greater when I receive messages on social media or speak to fans after games and they tell me they loved the book, or read it cover to cover in a single night. But I still can’t top the feeling I got when I saw that girls had dressed up as Grace for Book Week at school. This was when it really hit me: I’d created a character, from my mind, that had had such an impact on these young girls that they had decided to dress up as her out of any other character from a book in the whole world. 

The transition from primary school to high school is probably the most critical time in a young girls’ life. There are so many changes, pressures and stresses that you go through in your early teenage years. You are discovering who you are and who you want to be. For me, sport was a huge part in helping me find myself and what I wanted out of my life. It helped me make friends and learn some of the most important life lessons of team work, resilience and dedication. It also helped me escape from the pressures of high school. If I can help one girl or boy who reads Grace on the Court get through this time in their lives, I’ll have achieved what I wanted to out of writing the book. I know it’s not going to change lives, but if I can encourage one person to play sport or pick up a book, I’ll be a very happy girl. 

So please, if you haven’t already, head to my ‘shop’ and treat yourself to a copy of Grace on the Court. It may not change your life, but it might make you happy for a few hours a day. And don’t worry, there’s a second one coming soon.

Happy reading,

Maddy x 

INTERNATIONAL LOVE

I’ve spoken before about how amazing it is the way people in the sporting world come together and support each other. With that, I was referring to players, coaches, support staff, fans, officials, volunteers and anyone else who has a connection to sport. But being in a sporting team is something different altogether. Whether that’s at the professional level or your Saturday afternoon G grade team, you create a special bond with your teammates that is different to anything else. 

There’s been a lot of talk this year about the Swifts and the bond we have as a team. And being on the inside, I can assure you not one part of it is fake. We train together, hang out together and the majority of us even live together. And then we still want to hang out with each other again. While it’s often risky bringing together so many players from different states and overseas, for us, this has been an advantage. We have Paigey and Loz, our two locals, who round out the rest of us outsiders. But the fact that we are in each other’s pockets day in, day out, means we know each other like the back of our hand. After three years of being together, this has now begun to transfer onto the court. The tough conversations aren’t so tough anymore and you begin to know what your teammate is going to do before they do it. While there are a multitude of factors that contribute to a successful team (skill, fitness, strength, tactics, leadership to name a few), teamwork is number one. There’s a reason so many of us don’t play individual sports; we’d get lonely. Nothing compares to training and playing alongside your friends. And it helps when you really, really like each other. 

It’s funny how fate can bring people from all walks of life together. Just the other week, a bunch of us were going to an event in Circular Quay. I was walking next to Helen (Housby in case you’re 1 of 2 people who don’t know who she is) and we were taking in the Opera House on our right and the Harbour Bridge straight ahead and thinking how lucky we are to be living in one of the best cities in the world. “How weird is it that we’ve both ended up here together,” I said to Helen. We’d crossed paths without knowing six years earlier in an Under 19s competition but now we had found ourselves in the same team in the same city which neither of us came from. Helen comes from a small country town in the north of England and she couldn’t believe it either. “I never thought I could make a career out of netball, let alone move countries for it,” she’d said. For that young, skinny-but-talented kid to now be one of the best players in the world (and the only one sponsored by Red Bull) is crazy. 

I’d been to Trinidad & Tobago for a tour in 2012 when I was part of the 21&Under Australian team. It’s a beautiful country, but parts of it are very poor and very dangerous. To think that seven years later I’d be playing with Sam Wallace, the only player from Trinidad to play in Australia is pretty unbelievable. She has been through and sacrificed so much to be here that she is an inspiration to anyone who has the privilege of knowing her or watching her play. I now FaceTime Sam’s nephew, talk to her friends on the phone and one day hope to go back for her wedding (no pressure Theo). It’s a pretty unique situation when you have people from so many different places, cultures and upbringings coming together to achieve one goal. Everyone has had such different journeys to bring them to this team. There’s also Nat, our third international, whose move across the world came a little later than it did for others. We both captained our countries at the 2013 World Youth Cup and I’d always remembered her as the one I gravitated towards at events. She was bubbly, welcoming and always smiling. And she’s no different now. I feel so lucky to have these three different, caring, exciting and of course, talented friends in my life. And they’re pretty handy netballers too. 

There’s always a lot of talk about what internationals do to Australian netball. Do they take opportunities that should be given to local talent? Are they impacting the future of Australian netball? In my opinion, they don’t, and they aren’t. If you want to be the best, you have to play with (and against) the best. And these international players are the best in the world, all contributing to improving the state of our game. You look at the NBA and the EPL and they are the premier sporting leagues in the world. If SSN wants to become the equivalent, we should be welcoming the best talent in the world with open arms. To have three African nations compete (and I mean really compete) at the World Cup for the first times shows just how much our sport is evolving. Netball changes lives, particularly of girls from these countries who get the opportunity to play internationally. You can’t look at Peace Proscovia from the Sunshine Coast Lightning and hear about her story and not think that we need to continue to welcome international talent. I hope we see more players from the African nations in SSN, and I think we will. Maybe we should instead focus on trying to introduce more teams to the competition to create more opportunities for Australian and international players. 

You can’t ignore the bond that is formed from players all over the world when you look at teammates reunite after being apart for a month during the World Cup. There were tears when our players came together in Perth, and we all realised just how much we had missed each other. For the girls who had played against each other for their respective countries to go from enemies one day to best friends the next shows just how much sport, and netball in particular, brings people from all walks of life together. Plus, I love making friends from all over the world. It gives me free accommodation for my next holiday. 

Until next time,

Maddy x

ONE STEP AT A TIME

I don’t want to keep writing about my knee and boring you all to death with details, but they say, “write what you know” and right now, rehab is what I know. So, here’s what I’ve learnt a month after my injury:

1.    Learning to walk is HARD but getting your leg straight is HARDER

This is probably the biggest learning I’ve had since my injury. I was naïve in thinking I would automatically be able to walk normally and do everything I could pre-surgery as soon as my knee felt better. But no, you actually have to learn how to walk again. My extremely wise strength & conditioning coach told me that “it’s a brain injury just as much as a knee injury”. While this wasn’t the most comforting thing to be told, it made complete sense. Your knee has to learn how to work with your brain again and vice versa. This has involved completely breaking down the ‘art of walking’ into small parts: shifting weight from one foot to another, lifting onto your toe, swinging your leg through, pushing your heel into the ground with a straight leg and then putting everything together. It’s hard and it’s complicated and every day you have to keep practicing this before it all finally connects back to your brain and you can do it without thinking. How amazing is the human body?!

So while walking is mentally hard and requires a lot of concentration and focus, getting your leg to straight is even harder, mostly because it hurts. For some medical reason which I’m sure I’ve been told before, the muscles around the knee don’t seem to want to relax and the joint doesn’t want to go straight. So you have to sit in all sorts of uncomfortable positions just so your knee will finally go straight and the hardest part will finally be over. And then you wake up the next morning and it’s stiff so you have to start all over again…

2.    Muscles take no time to disappear but FOREVER to come back

One of the biggest worries people often have when sustaining a long-term injury is the fact that you can’t do much physical activity and therefore fear you will turn into the size of a house. Well that’s what I was thinking, anyway. But it’s the complete opposite. I’ve spent the last 9 months in the gym four times a week doing weights, trying to build muscle and get into the best shape possible to play. And then I spend a week away from the gym, lose over 3kgs and it’s all muscle. Now my leg resembles some sort of warped match stick. And this isn’t one of those “omg poor me I’ve lost weight while other people would kill to lose it that easily” times, it’s an “I haven’t actually lost weight I just don’t have any muscle left”. So brb, going to the gym to get ripped. 

3.    People with disabilities are HEROES 

Walking, bending down, kneeling, running across the road, climbing stairs – these are everyday things that I took for granted. I feel extreme jealousy when I see a kid playing on a playground, someone run for the bus or bend down with ease to pick something off the floor. This made me realise how difficult life must be for people who live without the use of their legs. I understand I’ve only experienced the most miniscule end of the scale and was only on crutches for two weeks, but it was enough for me to have a new appreciation for the strength and resilience of those in a wheelchair or with severe leg injuries. Watching Dylan Alcott win his 12th Grand Slam title at Wimbledon last week proved why he is such an inspiration to people all over the world. In his winning speech, he thanked those who broadcasted his match, saying that “not only does it change our lives, but it changes the lives of a lot of little kids out there with disabilities who see people like them on TV for the very first time.” It was an emotional speech which made anyone who watched it realise what heroes Dylan and other elite wheelchair sportspeople really are. 

4.    Rehab is EXTENSIVE

It’s funny how people think that when you have a long-term injury it means you’ll suddenly have a whole lot of extra time on your hands. And while that was true for maybe the first day or two, it’s been the opposite since. Rehab is extensive. Especially when you still want to be part of the team. That means coming in early or staying late so I can do my own rehab and conditioning sessions while still being around for the team trainings. There’s also the endless amount of icing, the strength and mobility exercises and physio appointments.  But don’t worry, I’ll still have time to write a third book. 

5.    Everything is a hazard 

I recently tweeted about some “market research” I had been conducting into the most dangerous places for people with knee injuries to visit and these were my findings:

1.    Supermarkets – trollies are weapons

2.    Anywhere with kids – crutches are magnets

3.    Football games – legroom is non-existent

 However, after discussions with other sufferers and further research of my own, these can also be added to the list:

4.    Kids with scooters – the combination is lethal 

5.    Public transport – people are selfish 

6.    Anyone walking on their phone – zero peripheral vision 

7.    Walking while on your phone – phones are not made of glass 

8.    Birks or any other form of non-sneaker footwear - they do not agree with uneven surfaces 

9.    Swimming pools – slippery floors, jumping kids, people learning to swim… it’s a disaster

The key to avoiding any of these hazards is concentration - something I sometimes (okay, often) struggle with. I guess my teachers were right when they told me I was “easily distracted”. Oh well, just another skill to learn and develop over the next 11ish months of rehab (or reconditioning as Lukas would call it). 

Thanks for reading and hopefully next week I might be able to write about something other than my knee… not making any promises though.

Maddy x 

MADDY OFF THE COURT

Picture credit: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

---

Injuries suck. But they also provide opportunities. Opportunities to learn more about yourself, about what you want from your career and in life, and the opportunity to work on things outside of sport. Hence, this ‘blog’. But I don’t like the word blog, so I think I’m going to go with diary. Much more author-esque. I’ve been wanting to create a website for a while but haven’t had the time or the resources to go through with it. Then my ACL decided to give way and ta-da, here we are. I also had a little help (okay, a LOT of help) from my friend Emily Wilson (nee Beaton, aka Cleverhand) who gave me the push I needed and did pretty much everything for me to make this happen.

I knew I’d done my ACL the moment it happened. I’ve never done one before, but my first thought (between cries of pain) was, “if I was ever to do an ACL, this is what it would feel like”. It was a bizarre experience. When I hit the ground I immediately cried out in pain. I was in agony. It felt like my knee was stuck to the floor and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get up. All I remember from those first few moments is saying “I felt it go, I felt it go” and then telling Helen Housby, who was crouched over me, to go back and be with the team. The next few minutes were even crazier. The doctor offered me the Green Whistle to ease the pain and as soon as I saw it, I realised the pain had gone. I couldn’t believe I could go from feeling such intense agony to as if I could almost have walked off the court.

I was then taken to the medical room with our team physio and the Firebirds’ Doctor, Sharon. I couldn’t have asked for better medical staff in that moment. They did the usual tests and I’ll admit I felt a glimmer of hope when the ACL test was done as I didn’t feel like my knee moved too much. But then they checked my left (good) knee, and it didn’t move at all. That’s when the reality really hit home. I couldn’t control the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing down my face. Anyone who has sustained a season-ending injury will know the feeling. You think back to the countless hours you spent in the gym, on the running track and on the court and to all the sacrifices you made over the last six months. But then I realised it hadn’t been for nothing. I had played seven games with the Swifts and we were sitting on the top of the table. I was in close to career-best form and would like to say I’d contributed in some way to us being in first place. That’s when my mind immediately switched to the team and the rest of the season.

Once the tests were done and the emotions began to subside, Sharon, the doctor, said to me, “I think the best thing you can do right now is go back out there and support your team”. It was exactly what I needed to be told. I grabbed my crutches and made my way back onto the court, proud as anything to see that the team hadn’t only sustained the lead, they had but built on it. Everyone stepped up and took their game to another level. I was consumed by the game and the action unfolding so much so that when Laura Geitz, the sideline commentator, approached me about whether I’d be willing to speak to her, I didn’t hesitate for a second. We often talk about having ‘out of body experiences’ and I honestly think I had one in that moment. I’ve been asked a lot since that interview how I had the strength to do it, but I really think it was just that my focus was only on the team and what needed to happen from there. I also think I’d wasted all my tears in the moments before.

Being captain of the team has also made this whole experience easier (not that it can ever be described as easy). Knowing that while my job on the court is over, there’s still so much I can do for the team off the court. I haven’t missed a training session since the injury, except for being able to travel with the team to Adelaide post-surgery, but I was back at the club the day after I got out of hospital. While people may think that would be harder for me, it’s actually helped me stay so positive and put on a brave face. That, and my housemates. I am so lucky to live with Maddy Turner, Kate Eddy and Sophie Garbin (and Ryan, Sophie’s boyfriend, of course!) They have massaged my leg, washed my hair, cooked me dinner, filled the ice machine up countless times, but most importantly, made me laugh. Their company, along with the revolving door of Swifts teammates I’ve had around me, has made me feel so lucky to be in this environment. It’s not just the players, it’s the support staff, too. Briony, our head coach, has done two ACLs so knows first-hand what I’m going through and I’m eternally grateful for her support. The team physio and strength & conditioning coach will be my best friends for the next year and I’m so privileged to be working with the best in Steve and Lukas.

I’ve been overwhelmed with the support I’ve received since my injury and it really made me realise how many people care about me and what I’m going through. The messages I’ve been sent on social media have helped me stay so positive throughout this whole experience. While I’m hurting and am devastated my season is over, it’s made me realise how lucky I am to have so many incredible people supporting me and thinking of me. Sport has an uncanny way of bringing, and keeping, people together that I don’t feel like I can ever wallow in self-pity when I’m so privileged to be in the position I am in. I know I’m not the first person to do an ACL and I definitely won’t be the last. People have almost been ‘surprised’ by how positive I’ve been and while I know its early days and I have a loooong road ahead of me, I just don’t feel like it’s right to get too down about it.  I’m sure I’ll have days where I break down and cry and think it’s all too hard and “poor me, why me?” but it’s during these times that I’ll learn the most about myself and experience the most growth as an athlete and a person (and it will give me some great material for Grace on the Court 3).

Without boring you too much more with soppy stuff, I’ll leave you to explore my website, check out some of the content and of course buy Grace on the Court. Did I mention I wrote a book?

Thanks for reading!

Maddy x