They come from the Land Down Under
It’s not every day that you see three individuals travel across the world to play a sport. But when it comes to these ladies and the game that they love, the travel is more than worth it.
Senior captain, three-year starter and Spectrum-wall adorner Alice Coddington, senior forward Stacey Howard, and junior post Maddie Plunkett form a trio with a commonality not often seen in the wide world of sports. Not only have the three Aggies traveled thousands of miles to Logan to collectively try to lead Utah State to their first WAC championship since the women’s basketball program started anew in March 2002, but they all just happen to be from the same country – Australia.
Yes, Australia.
This just in: there are more than just kangaroos and a large desert that shares a name with a delicious steakhouse in the land Down Under.
And if there indeed isn’t much more than these three ladies down there, at least the USU coaching staff and head coach Raegan Pebley found them.
Coddington was the first to come to Cache Valley. After expressing desire to come to the United States to play collegiate basketball, the Canberra, Australia native narrowed her choice down to two options: Utah State, or Boston University.
For Coddington, who currently leads the WAC in assists per game with 5.0, the decision certainly wasn’t based on campus location.
“They tried to sell me Boston the city,” she said. “For USU, they sold the university. They didn’t try to sell me Logan.”
That difference in bringing Coddington to USU was Kristy Flores. Flores, a former USU assistant coach hired in 2004, was especially instrumental in the recruiting of each player. Her influence only increased after she was named associate head coach prior to the 2007-08 season, with recruiting coordinating at the top of her new duties list.
Flores herself is from Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. She was a well-recognized player in Australia before her college days, initially coaching with Cal-Poly.
“With Kristy, it was important for me in knowing she’d been through the same thing I’d been through,” Coddington said. “She knows of opportunities in both Australia and America, and so she has networking. So, you’re not completely out of the picture when it comes to being out of team (after college). When you’re in America, you’re somewhat out of sight, out of mind. If you return to Australia, she can vouch for you a bit.”
When it came to arriving in a foreign atmosphere, among the surprises for Coddington were the physical demands placed on the athletes in America.
“The workouts are completely different,” said the player who began her Aggie career off the bench as a small forward, only to start at shooting guard the past two seasons before sliding over to the floor general at point guard this season. “(In Australia), you work out two, maybe three times per week.”
Unless you are the cream of the crop, even professional players, Coddington said, will hold another job to support themselves or their family.
Plunkett said both the rapidity of play and the organization of the game varies in the land of the Outback.
“American basketball is a lot more structured,” she said. “We don’t do a lot of scouting crap like that. We just play, you know? We have set plays, but not 30 or 40 offenses. Not as many structured defenses. We just play.”
A far cry from what she, Coddington, and Howard do in the highly precise Aggie system. Despite the structure, however, Howard wanted to continue her hoops career in the western side of the world.
After playing with her special-invitation team, the Queensland native said she contacted her Australian team head coach with the desire to play collegiately in America. Flores was just one phone call away.
“I probably wouldn’t be here without her help and advice,” Howard said. “I remember talking with her for hours about the life of a student-athlete in America, versus what I would be doing otherwise in Australia.”
She said Australian universities don’t afford athletes the opportunity to play sports on scholarship. As Coddington noted, club sports are as good as it gets on the collegiate level.
“She told me that being a student-athlete in America, I’d have so much more time than trying to balance basketball, school and university in Australia,” said Howard, who is averaging 2.3 points, 2.0 rebounds and 11.1 minutes per game off the bench after having started two games in place of then-ill leading scorer Ashlee Brown last month.
“You have more resources available here,” she said. “I don’t want to say you’re babysat in America, but there’s definitely a lot more resources here.”
Resources that were enticing enough to put her and the others at risk of being prone to a bit of Americanization – at least when it comes to that “all-too-familiah” accent.
“(Living in the U.S.) has influenced (the accent) a huge deal, too much, more than I would have liked it to,” Howard said. “When I went back to Australia, people asked me if I was an American, which sucked. I had grown up there, then went back (over the summer) and felt like an international student, when it was my home.”
“I would just meet people, but also people who know me and give me a hard time,” said Howard. “My brother gives me the hardest time for having an American accent. Mocking words, everything.”
When it comes to Aggie basketball, Plunkett is the newcomer. After transferring from College of Southern Idaho (CSI) last year, Plunkett has enjoyed her new home – at least until the winter, that is.
“The people are great, the coaches are great,” she said. “I just don’t really like the cold weather. It’s just overwhelming.”
From Albury, New South Wales, the 6-foot-2 outside-shooting post is averaging 1.9 points and 2.0 rebounds in 8.7 minutes during the seven games she has played, while making an impressive six steals thus far. It was, once again, Flores’ influence that gave the Spectrum the necessarily luster to woo Plunkett to the Intermountain West.
While a slight detour was necessary for academic purposes, Plunkett says she is now happy to be reunited with former CSI teammate LaCale Pringle-Buchanan, as well as fellow Aussies. She was already familiar with Coddington, whom Plunkett insists her competitive teams beat on a regular basis ever since they were 10, when they first met.
“Our team, the Albury Cougars, were very good,” Plunkett said. “We beat Alice’s team all the way until we were 18.”
Though the United States offered each player greater opportunities on the court and elsewhere, each girl loves her heritage and what it represents.Howard said when it comes to achieving and enjoying life at the same time, the Land Down Under has the best of both worlds.
“We have the benefits of an American, first-world country, but not the hustle-bustle of an American lifestyle that pushes you into a ‘you have to be this and this and this, with a perfect, ideal lifestyle that you have to have,'” she said.
“Versus an Australian lifestyle that just says that you live your life and have fun,” she continued. “I think, for me, it has the advantage for both. We’re the greatest country in the world.”
National pride or not, Coddington said as a part of a unified team, the players’ top priority is riding the five-game winning streak the Aggie women have established.
“We need to continue the way we’re going,” Coddington said. “To continue to get better day-in and day-out, just never be complacent and always want more and know we aren’t at our best right now. We’ve got to be aware of that at this time so we don’t end up saying ‘oh, we should have done this back then.’ We need to be accountable for what we are doing right now.”
– rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu