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<\/p>\nWhen Megan Nestor first arrived in Plainview, Texas, she was worried. First, she worried about the dry heat. Growing up in St. Lucia, an island in the Caribbean, Nestor was accustomed to perfect beach weather: humidity, sunshine and blue skies.<\/p>\n
Then, she worried about finding her way around. Nestor had never visited Wayland Baptist before. But now, in a matter of days, she would be attending classes without so much as a tour.<\/p>\n
The only thing Nestor wasn\u2019t worried about was the sport she came to Texas to play. Though in hindsight, she should have been. Nestor had been given a scholarship to be a part of the basketball team. The only problem? She\u2019d never played. In fact, she\u2019d never even watched a game on TV.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just blindly went along with it,\u201d said Nestor, who now plays for North Texas. \u201cI had no idea what I was getting myself into.\u201d<\/p>\n
At home in St. Lucia, basketball \u201cwasn\u2019t really a thing,\u201d she says. St. Lucia is known for its paradisal beaches, organic food and a dormant volcano that can be toured by driving straight into its crater. A former British territory, the island gained independence in 1979, but maintains some aspects of British culture, including its sports scene. One of those sports is netball.<\/p>\n
Basketball is a global sport, but netball has an intense hold on young girls and women in places like New Zealand, Australia, England and the Caribbean. Because of this, there is a cohort of women\u2019s college basketball players who spent their childhoods playing netball. Like Nestor, Columbia\u2019s Fliss Henderson, Kentucky\u2019s Amelia Hassett and UCLA\u2019s Charlisse Leger-Walker grew up playing netball.<\/p>\n
All four have found success as basketball players in the U.S. UCLA is the No. 2 team in the country with Leger-Walker at point guard, Hassett is a sharp-shooter on a Kentucky squad that has competed with the SEC\u2019s best, Henderson\u2019s Lions are atop the Ivy League, and Nestor has set countless records this season, including a 34-point and 31-rebound game.<\/p>\n
Their talent at basketball is undeniable. But so are the fundamental skills that netball provides.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps in so many different ways that I didn\u2019t even realize until my basketball career started taking off,\u201d Hassett said.<\/p>\n
As a kid in North Curl Curl, a suburb of Sydney, Henderson always knew where she would spend Saturday mornings. Breakfast restaurants and coffee shops were filled with women and girls dressed in spandex skorts and matching fitted tops. They walked down the streets in their uniforms and ponytails, all heading to the same place.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaturday mornings are for netball,\u201d she said. \u201cLiterally everyone in Australia plays netball. You see everyone you know at the netball courts. It brings the community together in a really nice way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netball and basketball are like cousins. They share genes, but ultimately they are more different than they are similar. The first thing you\u2019ll notice about netball is the hoop. Aptly named, there is a rim with a net, attached to a pole. No backboard to be found.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks kind of funny,\u201d Leger-Walker said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n UCLA\u2019s Charlisse Leger-Walker, fourth from left in back row, celebrates the 2019 netball high school national championship in New Zealand. (Courtesy of Leger-Walker family)<\/p>\n
Like basketball, the goal is to get the ball into the hoop. But in netball, players can\u2019t dribble. They also have to give three feet of space to opposing players, making shot blocking more difficult, and are confined to certain spots on the court. There are seven players for each team, no physical contact allowed, and the ball cannot be held for more than three seconds. The result is a game with spacing similar to the forward, midfield and defender concept used in soccer, mixed with the quick ball movement of a three-man weave.<\/p>\n
Netball is often the first sport girls in Australia or New Zealand play, unless they have a prior connection to something else. Leger-Walker\u2019s mom was an Olympic basketball player, and her dad represented New Zealand in rugby, so her first sports were basketball and touch (like rugby without tackling). In Albury, New South Wales, Hassett started out playing field hockey like her mom, before eventually switching to basketball because her older brother was playing. But even with other sports in the mix, netball is almost unavoidable.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of my friends played netball,\u201d Hassett said. \u201cSo, of course, I joined too because I wanted to hang out with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Leger-Walker and Hassett played netball and basketball simultaneously until coming to the United States for college. Basketball was their primary sport, while netball remained a fun hobby to play with friends.<\/p>\n
Henderson didn\u2019t even consider basketball until a coach from a local girls team came by the netball courts. The coach approached her mom and asked if Fliss and her older sister, Kitty (who also played at Columbia), would be interested in trying basketball. At first, their mom said no without asking the girls.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t like the uniforms,\u201d Henderson said with a laugh. \u201cBecause in netball you wear dresses. It took my mom a long time to adjust to the American style of things, like the long shorts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Leger-Walker and Hassett, Henderson continued playing netball until college, but she instantly fell in love with basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved the amount of freedom you have and the physicality in basketball,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cHow you can just rip the ball off someone else and how the game happens so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was for those same reasons that Nestor was anti-basketball.<\/p>\n
She started playing netball in primary school and was a natural talent. She quickly advanced through the ranks of school ball and by the time she was 11, Nestor was representing her national team, playing alongside girls who were 16 and older.<\/p>\n
Her stepfather, who lives in Connecticut, tried to get Nestor to try basketball, but she was not interested. She wanted to be a professional netballer, and basketball, she told him, had way too much contact. She would never play such an aggressive sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d Nestor said with a laugh, \u201cplot twist!\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2021, Nestor was working two jobs when she got a call to represent St. Lucia in a netball tournament. Not an unusual call for her to get. But after the tournament she got another phone call, which was both unexpected and life-changing.<\/p>\n
Wayland Baptist\u2019s head coach, Jason Cooper, was desperate for a rebounder. Nestor was 6-foot-4, and had a nose for the ball \u2013 in netball at least \u2013 which was enough for Cooper. He was optimistic that he could turn her into a basketball player.<\/p>\n
Of course, Cooper had no way of knowing Nestor had vowed never to play such an \u201caggressive\u201d sport. But the promise of a full scholarship changed her mind, and within days she was on a plane to Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of how I grew up and where I come from, I knew how hard it was to get an opportunity like this,\u201d Nestor said. \u201cSo I immediately grabbed it. But I didn\u2019t take this opportunity for basketball. I really took it for school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Basketball was just something she had to do in order to get an education. As a freshman, Nestor spent more time carrying equipment onto the bus than she did on the court, playing just 47 minutes all season. When Henderson transitioned from netball to basketball, she had youth and a group of equally inexperienced teammates on her side. Nestor did not have the same luxury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know basketball plays; I didn\u2019t know we switched defenses,\u201d Nestor said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what fouls were. I didn\u2019t even know we switched sides at halftime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nestor struggled the most with ballhandling because dribbling doesn\u2019t exist in netball. It took her until her junior season to get the hang of it. Nestor had been a star netballer, but as a basketball player, she barely got any reps during her first season. It was a hard adjustment, and Nestor spent hours on the phone with her mother discussing the same question: \u201cWhat am I doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n
But during her sophomore season, something changed. Nestor realized that even when she played only a minute or two, she was making an impact. A rebound here, a steal there, a basket \u2013 backboard and all. By the time she recorded her first double-double, Nestor discovered that not only was she getting good at basketball, she was starting to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
She was officially a basketball player.<\/p>\n
After setting records at NAIA Wayland Baptist, Nestor transferred to North Texas, now with the goals of playing professional basketball.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople ask me all the time if I wish I would have started playing basketball sooner,\u201d Nestor said. \u201cBut if I did, maybe I wouldn\u2019t be the person I am. Maybe I wouldn\u2019t even be the player I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nestor isn\u2019t alone in that thinking. Henderson, Hassett and Leger-Walker all credit aspects of netball with making them stronger basketball players. Netball helped them learn to move without the ball, how to cut to space and how to anticipate and intercept passes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a selfless game. Because players are confined to certain spaces on the court, not everyone gets the glory of scoring or the excitement of blocking shots. One-on-one doesn\u2019t exist in netball.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou literally cannot get down the court in netball without all seven players,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cIt helped me to embrace my role in basketball because I never felt the urge to do everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each of the former netballers has found a passion for basketball, but they aren\u2019t opposed to playing netball again. Henderson and Hassett both said if they moved back to Australia, they would likely play with their friends, just like they did as kids.<\/p>\n
For Nestor, the pull is a bit stronger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never forget about netball,\u201d she said. \u201cNever. Netball is my first love.\u201d<\/p>\n
But basketball is her current love. At least for the time being, Nestor prefers dribbling, long \u201cAmerican\u201d shorts and hoops with backboards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Megan Nestor first arrived in Plainview, Texas, she was worried. First, she worried about the dry heat.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,257991,2331,1416,85,1415,41526],"class_list":["post-516020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-columbia-lions","tag-culture","tag-kentucky-wildcats","tag-sports","tag-ucla-bruins","tag-womens-college-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}