This year, 26 district sporting legends are being inducted to the hall of fame, honour roll and junior honour roll categories in the Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame. The News is featuring stories on each of the inductees in the lead-up to the induction ceremony on August 6. Today News sports reporter Rodney Woods speaks to Julie Staudenmaier (nee Gross), who is being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Julie Staudenmaier (nee Gross) started her basketball career training outdoors on slabs of cement at Tatura Football Netball Club, but by the time she retired Staudenmaier had represented Victoria and Australia and made a name for herself in the United States.
The former Tatura local, who now resides in Mississippi, always thought she could go far in the sport.
“It was kind of immediately (I thought I could make a career out of it),” she said.
“My mum used to always tell the story that when I came home from the first game I played I said ‘I love this game, I want to play for Australia'.
“I don't remember saying that, but apparently I did.”
Despite her bold ambitions from the start, basketball wasn't Staudenmaier's first sport of choice.
“Probably like most people back then I started off playing netball and then a Tat group started up,” she said.
“They (the organisers) were like ‘we are going to start up a team, do you want to be on it?' ”
“So, I had to beg my parents to play basketball.
“They were like ‘try it for one game and see how it goes’ and I loved it."
While Staudenmaier had represented Vic Country at junior level, it was a decision to not represent Vic Country again and move to Dandenong that really kick-started her career.
“I started when I was about 15 and from Tat I went to play with a Shepp team,” she said.
“Then I was on the Victorian Country under-16 or 18 team.
“I remember my last year of high school at Shepparton High School, Vic Country wanted me and Dandenong wanted me too.
“I thought ‘I have had enough of Vic Country, so I am going to play for Dandenong'.
“I remember it being a very traumatic decision, because the Vic Country coach came to the high school and tried to talk me into playing for Vic Country again and it was pretty awful for a 17-year-old to be making a decision like that, but I ended up going with Dandenong.
“From there, I went to the Victorian state team and the rest is history.”
Despite it being the right move, Staudenmaier said it wasn't easy.
“It was a lot of hard work,” she said.
“I had to travel down by train to practice.
“My oldest brother, at the time, lived in Melbourne, so I would catch the train, go stay with him and then take the train down again for a game.
“It was hard.
“I tried to study on the train, but it was difficult.
“The transition from Shepp to Dandenong was a good one.
“The coach was good — it was Charlie Wilson.
“He is very energetic and loud, but we all loved him and I learnt a lot playing down there in Melbourne.”
One of the highlights of Staudenmaier's career was representing Australia at not one, but two world championships.
“There's nothing like it, playing for the national team,” she said.
“We went to the ones (world championships) in South America, then to Korea.
“I was one of the youngest on the team, so I didn't get a whole lot of game time.
“I went to the coach after the game and he said ‘you played really well’ and I said ‘I only scored two points’ and he said ‘how much did we win by?’ and I said ‘two points'.
“It's just (an) amazing (feeling).
“You have this great sense of pride.
“It was a great adventure and a great learning experience.”
While representing the Opals was the pinnacle of her career, Staudenmaier's other major achievement was being awarded a sports scholarship to study and play at Louisiana State University.
Staudenmaier became the university's first player to be selected in the All American team in her first year and finished her career as the all-time leading rebounder in the university's history and was second on the all-time scoring list.
Now, she is ranked as the second leading rebounder in school history.
Back then, Staudenmaier said women's college basketball wasn't anything like it is today.
“It was starting to grow,” she said.
“It wasn’t very big when I first got there.
“Back then we played our games ahead of the boys, so by the end of the game you've got this massive crowd watching you.
“I think our generation probably started the ball rolling.
“Playing ahead of the guys really got us some attention, especially from the students in the crowd.”