Nelson working, playing basketball in Australia

With the success of the girls basketball program at Holton High School, it’s not surprising to see alumni translate those skills to excel at the next level. Currently, seven former Wildcats are competing at the collegiate level.

As it turns out, those skills can also be translated on a global scale as HHS alum Melissa Nelson recently took her talents to the southern hemisphere and it wasn’t long before an opportunity to continue her basketball career found her.

Since graduating from Fort Hays State University (where Nelson also played basketball collegiately) with a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology in 2013, Nelson has been working for Diamond Ag Research Inc. in Larned, where she also coached high school girls basketball for a season, and this past year looked into internship opportunities in Australia to “enhance my crop knowledge and expose myself to a different type of farming in a different area of the world,” Nelson said.

Looking into opportunities during Kansas’ winter months (Australia’s summer), Nelson was contacted by Eurofins Agrisearch Company and offered a position as Research Scientist and arrived in Shepparton, Victoria, Australia in mid-November.

Once in Australia, it wasn’t long before Nelson got back on the hardwood. She said her roommate in Australia invited her to play “netball” and she looked forward to trying a new sport.

After a couple of weeks playing netball, Nelson was approached by the team manager for the Lady Shepparton Gators, a semi-professional Australian basketball team, and she asked if she would be interested in trying out for the team. The question might as well have been redundant.

“I love the game and, to me, the draw back to the game is always in my blood. Last year it was a coaching role, but I was lucky this time and was allowed to play in a competitive league,” Nelson said. “I played under amazing coaching staffs that have always fed my desire to improve and stay involved in the game. I would love to inspire young girls from back home that with hard work and dedication basketball can open so many doors for you. The opportunities are endless.”

While Nelson’s trials require 50-70 hours of work per week (10 hour days), depending on her location, she still fit in time for two-hour practices with the Gators twice weekly (Tuesdays and Thursday) and managed to maintain a routine conditioning schedule with time for games on Saturdays, though Nelson noted the team is a mix of players with jobs and other attending universities.

It might have been a vast difference from her schedule while playing collegiately, but Nelson noted the one constant was the competitiveness.

One teammate played in Tulsa, Okla. before returning to play in the WNBL (the WNBA of Australia, as Nelson put it), starting a family and then coming back to play for the Gators at age 37. Nelson noted she is one of the best players she has ever had the chance to practice and play with on the court.

Another teammate just turned 18 and is preparing to play college ball in South Carolina next season, so there are a lot of players with Division I experience or goals of getting that experience.

Nelson said her own history with competitive basketball, both in college and high school, helped her jump into the mix midseason and the talent level already on the team was beneficial as well.

“My team was good before I got there so there is no pressure when I play. I just go out and play my game. I get assigned the toughest defensive assignment, which I find to be an honor and a challenge that the coach would give me that job,” Nelson said.

Being an “import” (her teammates’ term for a transplanted player) has had seemingly no affect on the team’s chemistry either, Nelson said. Everyone gets along and she said she is lucky to work with a group that pushes each other so hard in practice and can still leave the gym as friends.

While Nelson is the only import on the women’s team, she noted there are two other imports on the men’s team.

As far as adapting her game for international rules, Nelson said the differences in Australian basketball were mostly minor, with a wider lane and four 10-minute quarters being among the major differences.

Nelson also noted her teammates found her basketball shorts pretty humorous since they were longer than the shorts used in the men’s league. Traditionally, they keep their shorts three inches above the knee.

It clearly didn’t take Nelson long to get the hang of things, though. The Gators recently wrapped up their season by winning the grand final of the Northeast Conference, 60-51, over the Wodonga Lady Wolves and Nelson led the team with 13 points and was named the Grand Final MVP.

Nelson was even asked to play with the Victorian Bushrangers during the winter season, which competes in a level above the Lady Gators (a summer season team) and travels all around Australia. While she has cherished the opportunity to keep playing basketball, she noted her crop research position is her top priority.

Both work and basketball have given Nelson the opportunity to travel across multiple states in Australia, like Victoria and Southern New South Wales, and she said she keeps thinking back on what HHS coach Jon Holliday told her a long time ago about a little orange ball and the number of doors it would open.

It is advice from coaches like Holliday and her parents, Brent and Beth Nelson of Holton, that have pushed her to follow this dream and to continue to follow it as long as she can, though she noted she isn’t sure where the road will end.

“I’m not really sure where this experience will take me. I just know that it keeps the spark alive and makes me want to coach girls in the future,” Nelson said. “I want to be as inspiring as coach Holliday, coach (Dennis) Teg(ethoff) and coach  (Kurt) Haussler and help girls realize basketball gives you so much more opportunities in life then just playing the game.”

While Nelson may not know where her basketball journey is going to end, she knows for certain that where it started helped get here to where she is now and even thousands of miles away, Holton is still on her mind and pushing her to reach new heights.

“There is no other community that follows our athletes after they have completed high school better than Holton. The amount of encouraging messages I have received is unbelievable,” Nelson said. “It is heart warming to know as a player you are part of something so much bigger than just yourself when you play for this town. It drives you to be better and to represent where you came from to the best of your ability.”

Nelson may be a Gator now, but she is a Wildcat forever, something that seems to translate to success even across international borders.