A collaboration of the Ford Aussie Hoops coaching pathway and Basketball Australia paved the way for Mackenzie Stewart to join the Opals for a unique practical learning experience in Melbourne last week.
Stewart, from the Cockburn Basketball Association shadowed the Opals high performance team and players in preparation for the Ford BALLIN’24 Series.
“Being in a high-performance space like this with the Opals is really cool to see the ins and outs,” said Mackenzie.
The NBL1 player hails from a basketball family with Father Andy Stewart a two-time NBL champion and two-time WNBL Coach of the Year.
Mackenzie has grown up in basketball stadiums and now looks to pave her own path in the industry.
“I was born into basketball. My dad coached and I’ve sort of tagged along to everything with that. Cockburn offered me a job alongside my university studies and took a part time job in the grassroots. Played a little bit of NBL1, coached WABL and did some casual work with the Perth Wildcats running community engagement and events.”
“My club is Cockburn in Perth and the programs have taken off and grown with our development, I work with our 3 – 13-year-olds. Aussie Hoops is a portion of that, entry level for the kids. We create a pathway for kids to join the sport.”
An intriguing component of Mackenzie’s outlook is the crossover with her musical endeavors and an undergraduate degree in psychology.
Particularly in performance psychology – a rapidly growing field being advanced across trades that required composure and mental resilience during moments of pressure.
“I really love the high-performance space. I have done an undergraduate degree in psychology and looking at that with a psychological performance perspective. I do a lot of music stuff on the side, so this are of study ties in with singers, dancers as a well as athletes who need to perform in environments of high intensity.”
“Being in a high-performance space like this with the Opals is really cool to see the ins and outs. The mental space and psychology of the player has a massive impact, and probably underrated in performance. From a team perspective, if you zoom out and look at all of the one percent areas that reveal and edge or a weakness – it makes a massive difference.”
As many professional sports enterprises crack in on the winning formula across the world, so does Mackenzie with her young group at Cockburn Basketball Club.
“If you look at something long term you start to see patterns. Social psychology and how different personalities connect and work together is really interesting,”
“And then concepts of identifying what the best way to lead that group would be and from a junior coaching perspective, when you’re working with kids, you’re taking a leadership role with expected outcomes and the team will have a diversity of personalities the need to be integrated towards the goal.”
With the Opals experience done and dusted, Mackenzie Stewart will continue her studies and apply her learnings to a prosperous beginning to her career.
“It's been awesome to see. An unreal experience. There’s a lot to take in but it’s been cool to be able to watch it and see the environment. Hearing people’s stories is really interesting. The various journeys that people take to get here,” said Mackenzie.
“The connections that I’ve made in basketball or the stories that I’ve heard, sometimes from six-year-olds lapping it up to fifty-year-olds engaging in the same thing, in a different way.”
“Sport brings people and community together. It’s fun to see it at different levels, from here with the Opals and the community level.”
“I’ve truly and honestly seen people’s lives be changed through sport. As a coach at the junior levels knowing the impact that you can have on a kid is pretty important. And from a player's perspective, looking up to the next level and the scope to have an impact through this sport is huge.”
