Ian Anderson.
Charlisse LegerWalker’s coach says she is one in a million, reports
Basketball fans might not recognise the comparison – her representative coach Anthony Corban reckons he can sneak it past her mum.
But horse racing fans would certainly have their ears pricked if they heard a sportsperson be compared to Winx, the allconquering Australian galloper.
Especially when that sportsperson is 15 years old.
Yet that’s how Corban sees Waikato teen Charlisse LegerWalker – a prodigy capable of establishing a legacy.
A quick highlights reel of LegerWalker’s achievements in the past year include guiding her St Peter’s Cambridge school team to national titles (NZ secondary schoolgirls and the NZSS 3x3 tournament), starring in the Waikato under-19 and under-23 women’s teams that won national titles (being named MVP at both events) and being a standout player for the Waikato Wizards women’s side. Oh – she also trialled for the Tall Ferns this year too.
No wonder then that Corban, a hugely successful coach with Waikato women’s age-group teams and NZ 3x3 sides, can make a big claim.
‘‘I can joke about it – [trainer] Chris Waller’s got Winx, and I go and watch a kid like this train each week. She’s a rarity. The next two years of her life are going to be very exciting for her.’’
So how does a 15-year-old secondary school student fit everything in?
‘‘It’s hard to try and balance all my schoolwork and trainings, and it’s getting harder with mock exams coming up in two weeks,’’ LegerWalker said. ‘‘I have a daily planner with classes, after-school training and what I’m going to study.’’
Mum Leanne Walker gives her daughter plenty of credit for her organisation and discipline.
‘‘I think Charlisse does a really good job of balancing it out. She’s set her own goals from when she was young.
‘‘Obviously I maybe nag here and there if I think something’s slipping – not so much with the basketball, more the academics,’’ Walker said.
‘‘People see her being good, but I don’t think they appreciate how much work she does behind it all. On Tuesdays and Fridays she’ll referee games until 9pm, come home, have a shower, then spend another hour doing her school work.’’
If you recognise the name Leanne Walker, it’s because she was a long-serving guard with the New Zealand women’s basketball team and also represented her country at touch rugby – another sport Leger-Walker also excels at.
‘‘With me so heavily involved with basketball and touch, they were on the side of the court and the fields for so long,’’ Walker said of her children – another daughter, Krystal Leger-Walker, has already played for the Tall Ferns and is now playing basketball and studying on a scholarship in the US with the University of Northern Colorado.
‘‘I guess it was a natural progression – however, we did encourage them to follow anything they wanted to, be it music, sport . . . She’s [Charlisse’s] been playing basketball since she was three, sat on the bench since she was five, doing stats for me.
‘‘People comment on her IQ for the game – it’s because she’s such a good observer of the game.’’
Said Corban: ‘‘She’s really got everything. High basketball IQ, physical strength and skill for a 15-year-old that I haven’t seen with another athlete.
‘‘And above all – very coachable and a team player. A lot of coaches joke that Charlisse coaches you, you don’t coach her.
‘‘She’s a young athlete that’s been taught the right way to play the game, and the right way to treat people, which is important.’’
How does Leger-Walker see herself as a player?
‘‘I think one of my biggest strengths is that I can score, get to the hoop – I try and bring that to any team I go into,’’ she said.
‘‘But also to lead – I think I have quite a good IQ for the game, and with say the under-17s I have a bit more experience so I try and help the girls on-court and off-court.’’
Walker adds: ‘‘She’s a good option-taker. If she needs to score, she will; if she needs to make a great pass, she’s got really good vision. That’s what you need in a point guard.’’
‘‘I’m a really competitive person,’’ Leger-Walker said.
‘‘Even our card games get competitive,’’ Mum added.
‘‘So I like the competitive side of it. But I’ve made most of my friends through basketball and playing sport, from under-11s – that side of it is a huge bonus.’’
Mother and daughter concur on the reason why Leger-Walker’s life is already dictated by basketball.
‘‘I think the key is – and it is for any young athlete – is that she enjoys it,’’ Walker said.
‘‘She’s passionate about it – so when she wants to make the basketball side work, she gets everything else lined up.
‘‘She just really loves it, and she likes playing in different teams, meeting different people of different ages.’’ She’s a rarity. The next two years of her life are going to be very exciting for her.
Leger-Walker sees the game as an opposite of a chore.
‘‘I love playing . . . in a way it releases pressure off everything else.’’
Corban said she needs to still be a teenager too – something he’s pleased he sees from her off-court.
‘‘She plays the game like she’s in the army – it’s very regimented, very structured, it’s all about her team and getting her team over the line.
‘‘Off the court, I call her the smiling assassin – she certainly will put her feet up off the court and at times act like a 15-year-old.
‘‘At times, she does also need to be playing her sport with her peers, with her age-group. You can be pushed as an athlete two agegroups above and miss out on that interaction.’’
Leger-Walker aims to follow her sister’s path with a basketball scholarship to a division one US college and she’s undoubtedly on the radar of college scouts already.
The ultimate goal is to play in the Women’s NBA in the US – ‘‘to make a living off basketball so I didn’t have to work, per se,’’ Leger-Walker said.
It doesn’t feel like work when you love it.