Sister act: Kiwis turn heads in US
Many pundits believe Kiwi teenager in America can become the female match for Steven Adams, writes Chris Rattue
There was just no backing down, and I’d have to say, ‘settle down’. Leanne Walker
There’s a Kiwi storm brewing on American basketball courts, with the potential to speed up a revolution in this country. And it involves the teenager many believe can become the female match for Steven Adams, the Kiwi NBA star who has given basketball a profile never seen before in this country.
Just one New Zealander has made the WNBA breakthrough since the American women’s professional league was restarted. Tall Fern Megan Compain of Whanganui played a handful of games for the Utah Starzz in 1997.
About a decade later, netball star Donna Loffhagen came close with the Connecticut Sun.
But a Waikato sisterly double act are already driving the game ahead like never before, thanks to their stellar performances and a social media influence unimaginable when Compain and Loffhagen were playing.
Krystal and Charlisse Leger-Walker are making incredible waves by turning Washington State into a rising force in the Pac-12, one of America’s five elite college sport conferences.
Picked to finish last in the powerful conference, the Hamilton-raised sisters helped propel Washington State into the country’s top 25 teams at one point this season, a first for the team since the Associated Press poll began.
The 23-year-old Krystal, a point guard, is top five in conference assists and top 15 for points, and is Washington’s second-best scorer behind her sister.
Shooting guard Charlisse, 19, is causing the biggest stir, having won a string of conference freshman-ofthe-week awards. Many pundits believe she is New Zealand’s greatest female basketball star in the making.
Charlisse’s ability was hardly a secret in Kiwi basketball circles.
At 16 she became the youngest Tall Fern, but her extraordinary showings for Washington State are something else.
She heads the conference in total points and steals, lies second in points per game, and has produced game-winning shots in an overtime win over No 7 Arizona and a double-OT win over Oregon.
Charlisse told the Weekend Herald from the US: “I didn’t expect anything coming into the season. I just wanted to find my rhythm and how I fitted in this league.”
It’s turned out to be a lot more than that.
In a recent game, she emphasised the point.
Fighting back from losses to No 6-ranked Stanford — who successfully targeted the rookie star — Charlisse scored
28 points as her team overcame UCLA, the first time Washington State has beaten a side ranked in the top five.
Her most crucial shot came with 42 seconds left, a three-pointer for the lead.
Opposing coach Cori Close echoed what the game is saying, describing Charlisse as mature beyond her years.
“She’s got a very good balance of strength and aggression with skill and shooting ability,” said Close.
“She’s one of the best freshmen in the country.”
The sisters have a fascinating pedigree. The obvious basketball inspiration is mum Leanne Walker, a Tall Fern at two Olympics who captained the 2004 team and is the Waikato Wizards coach.
Their uncle Gus Leger, younger brother of the girls’ dad Eliu, was a trailblazer, a Kiwi junior softballer recruited by the lateral-thinking California Angels baseball programme three decades ago. His varied sports career included playing for Tonga at the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
Basketball was always likely to dominate Krystal and Charlisse’s sports careers.
Leanne Walker says: “The girls probably started playing when they were three and four, but they were always on the sideline anyway.
“I played throughout, before and after I had them.
“They would get taken to trainings — there were other women with their children and we had a little crche going at Waikato and the Flyers club team.
“If you wanted to keep playing at a high level that was pretty normal. “I had Mandy Hill as coach one year and she would walk up and down the sideline with Krystal in a backpack while she was coaching.” Determined and talented sisters have emerged, always pushing and pulling each other along. They played a range of sports with skill, but natural ability was only the starting point.
“They are very competitive, we all are,” says Leanne.
“When they were training together back here last March, in team versus team and one versus one, I’d have to step in now and then and say come on, because it was getting a bit rough or physical between them.
“There was just no backing down, and I’d have to say, ‘settle down’.
“They train and challenge each other more than they would anyone else in the gym because they know they can handle the banter, or the way it comes out. They couldn’t do it to that level with other people, or not until they knew them well.
“But it has never affected their relationship as sisters — they are probably each other’s biggest fan. “Krystal is so proud of her sister, and Charlisse looks up to Krystal.” Leanne Walker does note some character differences in her daughters. “Charlisse has always had the confidence to have a crack. She doesn’t care if you knock her over,” she says.
“I always knew Krystal could really play but her confidence has lifted. She could hold herself back at times in the past. “When you’ve got your tsister there telling you to take shots, that you can do this, pushing you, then you just have to step up and do it.”
Krystal and Charlisse leave no doubt that they are a combined force which has made each player stronger.
Krystal says: “Our dynamics are so good because we’ve grown up playing with each other on the same or opposite teams.
“That’s also helped us in this transition [to America], helped us on the court this year.”
Charlisse says their oncourt chemistry is special, beyond that of normal teammates.
“We are super competitive on and off the court, and in training we go up against each other all the time. We make each other better every day,” she says. Four years older, Krystal led the move to America when she signed for Northern Colorado immediately after Year 13.
“I was a sook when I first got here and missed home a lot, being a world away from my family,” she recalls.
“But I found some great friends here, made great connections with coaches, and they settled me in pretty good.
“The girls over here are so good, there are so many who live and breathe basketball. The level and speed was much higher than I was used to. But I had great support.”
This was in a pre-pandemic world, when the family could head to the States to be with Krystal every Christmas.
It was Charlisse who made first contact with Washington State, from New Zealand, as soon as school rules allowed. But before she could take up her new career, the pandemic struck.
Krystal then returned to New Zealand early, and the girls were left with the tricky decision about whether to play with Washington. Putting the Covid-19 fears aside, they decided to stay on their American basketball track.
So playing in the pandemic bubble is all Charlisse has known in America. This includes pre-season training in masks, daily and pre-game Covid tests, limited socialising, constant vigilance and some game postponements when opponents had Covid-19 issues.
She also gets to live in an apartment with two other freshmen, rather than the usual starting place of a dormitory.
With her big sister helping smooth the way, it has been a remarkable transition for the younger LegerWalker. But the girls are far from alone in this Stateside mission.
Asurprising number of New Zealand kids go to America for sport as Leanne — the dean in charge of pastoral care at St Peter’s Cambridge — well knows.
These youngsters play a range of sports, including rowing, football, lacrosse and basketball.
“It was all available in my day but that was never me — I was too much of a home girl,” says Leanne, who was raised in the little eastern Bay of Plenty town of Opotoki.
“I’d get homesick too bad. I thought Hamilton was far away. It’s tough for any young Kiwi going to the States, especially your first year as a freshman, especially if you haven’t got any other Kiwis near.
“But the girls aspired to go to the States from when they were around 10 or 12 years old. They saw a pathway.
“There were some other Kiwis over there, and they know how important it is to get an education — if you can get a scholarship even better.
“I think they are so courageous. I take my hat off to them.”
Krystal is doing business/finance, and Charlisse business and environmental science. And both are doing the business on court under quality guidance.
Washington’s head coach is Kamie Ethridge, who also coached Krystal at Northern Colorado. She was a gold medal winner with the US at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Ethridge’s assistant is Laurie Koehn, a former WNBA player regarded as one of the great three-point shooters.
There are a good dozen other young female basketballers playing various levels in the States, and the hope is that the Walker-Legers and others will find ways of slotting into the New Zealand scene now and then, which will raise the levels here.
But they are already moving the needle in other ways.
“Krystal and I have had so much support thanks to how good social media is at connecting people,” says Charlisse.
“It has been really humbling to see how many people really like basketball and see how well we are doing.
“I’ve had quite a few younger girls message me, asking how I feel about college, what it’s like. It is really cool to connect with a lot of them.
“Basketball is growing so much in New Zealand and it would be really cool if Krystal and I are a reason why some girls are inspired to play.”
Krystal adds: “Mum is super big on it, especially about women in sport. She does a great job — she’s on some boards and really advocates for women’s sport and equality across many codes.
“We have these conversations quite often and want to see more girls participate and get behind the game.”
And the ultimate prize remains in sight.
“We’re just happy to compete with each other at such a high level . . . but playing professionally anywhere [around the world] would be a great honour and achievement,” Krystal says.
“The WNBA is super tough to crack — only a small percentage of girls get drafted, and from there only a certain amount go on to teams.
“It’s very hard to get into that league, but it’s definitely a possibility.”
A third Super Rugby Aotearoa round is the preferred contingency should continued transtasman bubble delays force New Zealand and Australia to scrap plans for a cross-border competition this year.
Last November, New Zealand and Australian rugby jointly trumpeted plans to stage 26 matches on both sides of the Tasman, with each country’s five Super Rugby teams scheduled to play each other once from May 14 until June 12. A final is scheduled for June 19.
Each team is supposed to play two home and two away games, while plans also include a Super Round where all matches in round three are in one location, over one weekend.
Such a scenario, however, was always ambitious in the volatile Covid-19 climate and ultimately contingent on quarantine-free travel between the two nations that seems unlikely to eventuate by May.
With New Zealand’s two-week quarantine expected to remain in place for much of this year, until the country’s population is vaccinated and protected against the virus, and as flare-ups in both nations delay the much-touted transtasman bubble, the crossover competition appears increasingly problematic.
New Zealand’s managed isolation facilities are also already booked out until June, with exceptions granted only to essential workers.
New Zealand and Australian rugby remain hopeful their cross-border competition will get off the ground but the Weekend Herald understands asking All Blacks to quarantine twice in a year is considered unrealistic.
Last December, the All Blacks were forced to quarantine for two weeks after arriving home from the Tri Nations tournament in Australia, and with overseas tests scheduled again this year, that scenario is likely.
This effectively rules out the prospect of staging the cross-border Super Rugby competition solely in an Australian hub.
After complications around training bubble sizes necessitated moving the Tri Nations tournament to Australia last year, the prospect of the Government welcoming five Super Rugby teams to New Zealand appears similarly far-fetched.
As uncertainty prevails over the likelihood of a transtasman bubble with all Australian states, NZ Rugby is preparing contingency options.
The Weekend Herald understands the preferred fallback option, should quarantine-free travel to Australia remain off the table, is to stage a third Super Rugby Aotearoa round in the same six-week cross-border window.
The five Kiwi teams are scheduled to play each other home and away from February 26 to May 1.
In the absence of a cross-border competition with their Australian counterparts, staging a third round would be the most cost-effective alternative and it appeals to the New Zealand franchises as they would gain more additional home fixtures.
It would, however, involve coaches carefully managing workloads throughout the season, with the relentless physical toll of Kiwi derbies a major concern.
A third Super Rugby Aotearoa round may see fringe squad players promoted to starting roles but interest is likely to dwindle compared with the start of the competition.
In a statement to the Weekend
Herald, New Zealand Rugby head of tournament and competitions Cameron Good confirmed contingency planning was well under way.
“We remain hopeful of a safe travel zone forming with Australia prior to the start of Super Rugby Trans-Tasman in mid-May but have noted the recent comments from Government on this,” Good said.
“However, like many organisations, we are looking at the contingency options with Sky Television and the Players’ Association to ensure we are prepared should there not be unrestricted travel between New Zealand and Australia and to that end have discussed the contingency option of playing a third round of Super Rugby Aotearoa.
“We will be guided by the advice of health authorities and Government and appreciate it is a fluid environment.
“The health and safety of our teams will always be our main consideration.”