Teen’s callup for Asia champs sat unread in junk email folder
For most people, clearing a junk email folder won’t unearth a callup to their chosen sport’s national side.
But for 17-year-old Maddie Morrow, the mundane task left her speechless after she found out she would be travelling to India with the under-18 women’s basketball team.
‘‘I was just sitting there in a bit of shock,’’ she said.
Morrow, a talented shooting guard for Christchurch’s St Andrew’s College, is the only South Island player to be selected in the travelling team of 12, which will compete in the FIBA U18 Women’s Asia Championship in September.
It could easily have been otherwise. Her invitation had been waiting unread in her junk folder for six days before she found it.
‘‘I thought I didn’t make it, and I had accepted that,’’ Morrow said.
‘‘The route I would have taken was telling myself: OK, I need to work harder.’’
But countless hours of shooting hoops and training six days a week had paid off, and Morrow had scored a spot in her first national side.
Canterbury Basketball skill development coach Adam Morgan predicted it would be her first national team of many, describing Morrow as ‘‘the best shooter in New Zealand’’ at the high school level.
‘‘Even worst case, if she’s the 12th girl on that roster, she’s someone that’s gonna bring a lot to the culture and enthusiasm and energy, but she has a pretty elite skill in her shooting,’’ Morgan said.
‘‘She’s been really incredible being both self-driven and a team leader.’’
When Morrow made the St Andrew’s College senior A women’s basketball team as a small year 9 student, she was forced to make up in her shooting what she lacked in height.
‘‘I was a little year 9, so they made me stand in the corner and shoot threes,’’ Morrow said.
She lived on school grounds during the first nationwide Covid-19 lockdown and spent every morning inside the school’s basketball gym with a goal of landing at least 200 shots a day.
‘‘I was in here every day of lockdown, shooting sometimes 1000 shots in the day. And I just loved it – I became obsessed with it, really,’’ Morrow said.
‘‘That’s really when my shooting started to take off and it became one of my biggest threats in the game.’’
Initially, she had dreams of becoming a Football Fern and played both senior A football and basketball for her school, alongside cricket and volleyball, but two years ago she found her passion for basketball ‘‘outdoes any other sport’’.
Checkers Basketball Club teammate and Canterbury under-19 coach Nicole Gleason described Morrow as the ultimate team-mate.
‘‘She’s probably one of the hardest workers I know. Always wanting to get in the gym, wanting to put up shots, and always messaging me, ‘Hey, do you want to go shoot?’ ’’ Gleason said. ‘‘And she can shoot the lights out.’’
Morrow’s family are no strangers to competing on the world stage. Her older sister Frankie is in the New Zealand university futsal women’s team and her father, Paul, competed in the 1999 and 2001 World Mountain Running Championships in Malaysia and Italy.
Her mother, Jo, sang in Whitney Houston’s backup choir at the 1991 Super Bowl.
‘‘The people who are coaching me and putting time into me and my game – I wouldn’t be the same at all [without them],’’ Morrow said.
The FIBA U18 Women’s Asia Championship will be held in India from September 5 to 11.
‘‘I thought I didn’t make it, and I had accepted that.’’ Maddie Morrow