The woman behind the ABs: Megan Compain on blazing trails and surviving abuse
The former WNBA basketballer and now All Blacks commercial manager talks to Marc Hinton about the darkness that overshadowed her first time away from home.
For a long, long time Megan Compain could barely acknowledge, let alone talk about, the darkness that overshadowed her first time away from home seeking her way in the sporting world. The shackles that encased her from an abuse of trust, power and influence took not just years, but decades to break free of.
For much of her life one of New Zealand’s finest basketballers, a trailblazer for her code and now a woman of immense influence in the wider sporting sphere, blamed only herself for a situation she endured as a wide-eyed teenager chasing her hoops dreams in the United States. She spent years punishing herself for it, before finally coming to terms with the simple truth: she was the victim.
“For 20-plus years I’ve kept that as my burden,” Compain tells Sunday News in an exclusive interview ahead of her first season as Scott Robertson’s right-hand woman in the All Blacks.
This 48-year-old Wellington-based, Whanganui-raised mother of 5-year-old son Emile, wife to Carlos, and now the newly installed commercial manager for the most iconic rugby team on the planet is finally ready to release that burden and tell her full story.
Many people already know part of that tale. Basketball folk especially. Compain was the first, and still only, New Zealander to play in the WNBA, the glitzy US league set up as the distaff version of the runaway success men’s NBA. She played for the
Utah Starzz in the inaugural season in 1997, overcoming almost impossible odds to play her way past hundreds and on to the roster through a series of trials to become the youngest player in the competition.
She didn’t play a lot (appearing in five games), the team didn’t win a lot and she didn’t last beyond that first season. But in 27 years since, no Kiwi has made it so far.
Though it’s taken her some time, she has finally learned to appreciate the significance of that, as well as the two Olympics she attended during a decade-long career with the Tall Ferns.
But our story on this go-getting sporting achiever, who also sits on the boards of Basketball NZ and Fiba Oceania, begins, well, at the beginning. Basketball had always been her passion and family circumstances – her father had a serious work accident when she was just 5 and suffered significant brain trauma – fed into a yearning to leave home, where life was far from easy, despite the love she clearly felt.
At just 16 she was offered the opportunity to attend high school in Newark, New Jersey, and kick-start her entry into the renowned American hoops system. She literally jumped at the chance.
“It was easy to leave because of the home situation. Also, I was a curious kid living in 1990s Wanganui which was not exactly aspirational and exciting,” Compain tells Sunday News.
“I was so obsessed with basketball and my parents had set me up well because I had the tools to do that, and then cope with what came at me next… at the time I wasn’t great, wasn’t well, but ultimately over time.”
It is only now, with the passing of time, with the perspective of motherhood, that Compain has decided to speak publicly about the abuse she suffered on that trip to the US when she was coerced into a relationship with a “trusted father figure” she now knows “I wasn’t prepared to cope with”.
“It was tough. You're a young kid and you trust your best interests are being looked after. It turned out they weren’t. I was with someone who was in a position to look after me and support me, and then it turned into a relationship I didn’t know how to get out of.
“It was subtle and very gradual. In class I was a novelty, and when I started playing basketball the attention came. I started to make friends, go to parties, I started dating the captain of the football team … then slowly, surely I got told, ‘you shouldn't be hanging out there, no, you’re not going to that party’.
“Your world starts to shrink. I was being manipulated and cut off from what I should have been doing, which was being a 16-year-old kid in high school.”
Compain can rationalise it all now, but for 10-15 years she felt self-loathing, shame and disappointment in herself that was tough to shake. “I walked into the sea and didn’t know if I was going to come out,” she said on a podcast just prior to our interview.
“For 20-plus years I’ve kept that as my burden, because I truly believed I was to blame,” she explains. “When you think about it, a 16-year-old trying to make those decisions, completely isolated, away from home, with no friends or family, and the one person supposed to be looking after you is abusing that trust … it’s extreme.”
Why open up on it now, after all this time?
“Because it’s still happening, and because I believe you won’t find a female athlete that’s played sport at a certain level that hasn’t had some type of situation they’ve found uncomfortable,” she says. “That has to change. We have to do more to protect our female athletes … particularly when they’re young and vulnerable.
“There is manipulation and hurt and positions athletes are put in, and that’s just not OK. So, if my story helps someone carrying a burden realise it’s not on them, it’s not their fault, then it will be worth it.”
Compain is not searching for sympathy. Far from it. She has used her experience to fuel her determination in other avenues – principally chasing basketball ambitions, and then career goals. “Everyone has their scars to bear. Those are mine,” she shrugs. “But there’s no question it shaped me. I didn’t want to be defined by this. I wanted to see the good in people.
“For a long time it was a difficult place to pull myself out of. That’s where sport was that outlet. I needed to get out of my own head, and I found that through basketball.”
What would she tell someone in a similar position now?
“Find someone you trust, someone you can talk to, and don’t carry this on your own. Know you’re not alone and, more importantly, that it’s not your fault. There is help out there and it won’t come back on you. But you have to have the conversation. So be brave.”
Resilience allowed an albeit damaged Compain to charge on with her basketball. She chose Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia (“I didn’t want to go to a
school in the middle of a cornfield and couldn’t imagine being at a college bigger than my hometown”) and went on to an outstanding four-year career there (topping the scoring for three straight seasons, while making a trio of NCAA appearances) that eventually led into the WNBA opportunity.
The first couple of college years weren’t the easiest – by her own admission she slid off the rails, partying too hard, living at times what you might call rough – but she was going through a healing process. “I didn’t have a healthy relationship for a very long time. He took that from me. By default you end up going a bit crazy. It wasn’t till many years after I had a serious boyfriend, an American I’m still friends with who kind of pulled me out of that.
“[The partying] absolutely stemmed from that. I didn’t have that sense of self-worth. I got through by getting out of my own head – through basketball or through alcohol. College gives you that platform. It was an easy thing to do until it became a problem.”
A trip home to reconnect with family and New Zealand between her sophomore and junior years helped. As did news the New Zealand women’s team would be heading to the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Five years out, Compain suddenly had a long-term goal to work towards.
“It gave me five years to turn myself into the best basketball player I could be. That helped for my last two years of college, and then the WNBA experience catapulted into a couple of years [playing professionally] in Europe.”
You wonder how she views her WNBA achievement? It’s been a long wait for someone to follow in her footsteps, though Charlisse Leger-Walker might be just a year away.
“For probably 23 of the last 27 years I didn’t wear it as a badge of honour because I put the critical lens on it. I was in the right place at the right time.
“I only played one season. I didn’t play many minutes (39 in those five games), Why were people celebrating this? I felt like I scraped in.
“Now, looking back, it’s a massive achievement. I was one of 96 players to make the league its very first season. I’ve finally accepted that.”
Compain played 10 years (19952004), and 57 games, for the Tall Ferns, highlighted by two Olympic appearances, in 2000 (Sydney) and 2004 (Athens). She’s proud of it all, treasures her team-mates (the likes of Leanne Walker, Donna Loffhagen, the Farmer Sisters, Jody Cameron, Rebecca Cotton, Aneka Kerr and Julie Ofsoski). And got a real kick out of the second Games effort.
Prior to the 2004 Olympics the Tall
Ferns caused somewhat of a furore. Folk at the NZOC and even some within basketball didn’t believe they should go (though there was no such fuss with the men on an almost identical ranking). To their immense satisfaction the Kiwi women upset China 79-77, on Compain’s last-gasp game-winner, to make the quarterfinals. “We went and we showed them. That was really satisfying.”
Again, something nags Compain about her international career. “I felt like I never quite hit my potential,” she says. “That came down to coaching styles. I never got the chance to show what I could really do. But basketball gave me everything … into the business of sport. That wouldn’t have happened if basketball hadn’t taken me on this journey.”
That journey saw Compain forge a life post-sport in sport, shaking off those “selfdoubts” to work for brands such as And1, Roots and adidas, then spend a decade with New Zealand Rugby managing the All Blacks’ relationships with key partners and, finally, the last three years in an advertising agency. “I don’t have a marketing degree. I’m not a communications expert. I got there because of my passion for sport and the way I connect with people.”
And now she’s part of the All Blacks’ inner sanctum, occupying half of the old manager’s role undertaken by Darren Shand. Now Paul Mclaughlin runs the on-field side of the team and Compain oversees, well, pretty much everything else, from “commercial partnerships, to the way we connect with fans, how we show up, what we want to be known for, our messaging, our tone in social media, to traditional media and broadcast relationships”.
As well as “coming full circle” back into a high-performance environment, the female factor burns bright. Compain is no lone ranger – nutritionist Kat Darry, operations manager Bianca Thiel and physio Teresa Te Tamaki are also part of Team All Blacks – but she might be the most influential.
“For an organisation like NZ Rugby, seen as traditional, conservative and staid, appointing a woman into this role does feel progressive. In my previous job I’d spent three years working around advancing the visibility for women’s sport. Had I taken a step backwards? Very quickly you realise this is another opportunity for a woman in sport to be seen.”
The job will be challenging and Compain, who reluctantly turned down a
“very tempting” role with Fifa just before, acknowledges there are bridges to mend. It’s no secret that under Ian Foster there was a major rift between the team and HQ and Compain aims to fix that.
“Over the years the All Blacks have potentially created this little bit of an island. We’d be living under a rock if we didn’t accept that the last three years have been really difficult … there was a strong desire to bring the organisation and the team back together.
“It’s building relationships and trust, and that’s always easier when you’re starting with a clean slate. I’ve already told Razor you shouldn't have to see me very often if things are going well. But if things aren’t, that’s when I will come across your desk way too often.”
Compain says a strong connection between NZ Rugby and its flagship team is a no-brainer. “With all due respect to the former regime … somewhere along the line it got broken, and it was really difficult for everyone. There were good people on both sides hurting.”
There is also a chance to improve how the All Blacks connect with their community. “They’re doing an awesome job on the field … but there’s a lot of other stuff we can do to be relevant and aspirational off the field.”
The Razor factor is intriguing. Is she ready to strap herself in for the ride with a driven, high-achiever like Robertson, with the quirky personality thrown in?
“It’s the part that got me really excited – coming into a high-performance team with Scott Robertson as coach. I’ve missed that. I can’t wait to see how he does team culture, how he creates his environment and sets standards. That all creates a winning environment and, on previous form, he does it better than anyone.”
Compain has been in the role since last November, but she’s understandably nervous and excited about the elevation when the squad assembles in July. She’s also conscious a certain detachment from rugby will help.
“The connection I’ve often had with players in my previous role was they’re fascinated about what I’ve done in basketball, because they’re all NBA fans. There’s a sense of commonality that’s not just me being a fan of who they are because they wear a black jersey.”
This is an important moment in the Compain story. She’s in a very happy place at home, and in her own mind. She was 43 when she had Emile, and she’s the first to admit she’s a changed woman.
“I always thought I wasn’t missing anything by not having kids. I didn’t think about it because it wasn’t much of an option for us. Now I love the idea of young athletes having children and being supported by NSOs to return to play. The more we normalise it, the better.
“I’m a walking cliche. From the moment I had him I couldn't see it any other way. He’s the absolute joy of my life. Every day the conversations are getting more and more fascinating.”
Any regrets in this life well lived?
“It’s not a regret. It’s part of the story. But I wish I hadn’t spent so much time beating myself up. It’s probably got me to where I
“There is manipulation and hurt and positions athletes are put in, and that’s just not OK. So, if my story helps someone carrying a burden realise it’s not on them, it’s not their fault, then it will be worth it.” Megan Compain