Cheryl Chambers, Larissa Anderson and Claudia Brassard share special link as WNBL’s three female coaches

Cheryl Chambers, 48, Claudia Brassard, 41, and Larissa Anderson, 39, all played for the Bulleen Boomers and in 2001 Chambers coached Anderson and Brassard.

In 2015-16, Chambers has returned to the league to lead Sydney, Anderson is in her second year at the helm of Dandenong and Brassard has taken the reins of back-to-back champs Townsville after a successful apprenticeship.

Megan Hustwaite spoke to the working mums who are juggling busy family lives with a national-league coaching gig.

SO much has changed yet so much remains the same for Cheryl Chambers.

Chambers led Bulleen from 2001 until 2009 and has come home to the WNBL this year as coach of the Flames.

“Coaching is certainly one of those things the more you do it the more experience you have and hopefully the better you become at it, like most things,’’ she said.

“I think a lot of my traits still stand, I’ve just become a smarter coach, better at teaching skills. As a young coach I probably had a good team philosophy because I’d played at the elite level. Managing teams came naturally but footwork and pivoting I probably wasn’t fantastic at that.

“I was naive, I thought every game I stood out there we could get a win, I still do actually, and I really believed in my players.”

At Bulleen and on a small budget, Chambers built a blue-collar team which fought above its weight. She prided herself on always getting the most out of her roster.

“There’s no point wasting a season thinking we don’t have enough budget, you’ve got to try and make the team play the best it can and that’s what’s enjoyable, everybody working hard to be their best individually and as a team,’’ she said.

She took the Boomers to their first grand final in 2009 and was then replaced by Australia’s greatest international coach Tom Maher.

“We didn’t have money so I’d worked so hard to try and get a group together, nothing against Tom, because he was just a great coach who went for a job, but it hurt a bit that the next year he had a huge budget,’’ she said.

“But I was really happy for the club that he took over and finally got the championship the club had been looking for, especially now it doesn’t exist anymore in the WNBL, but at the time, yeah it did hurt.”

Chambers went on to coach the Gems under-20s to a bronze medal and win a SEABL title with Knox before assisting Melbourne Boomers coach Guy Molloy for three years.

With the blessing of husband Mark and children Zac, 16, Sam 14, and Georgia, 9, Chambers took the Sydney job in June and the family are making the commute work.

“Sometimes you need to reinvent yourself and not going back to Bulleen gave me the opportunity to re-look at my coaching, skills and philosophies,’’ she said.

“The only hesitation ever is family and a different state. I think I was ready to get back in, I sat and watched and tried to help Guy as much as I could but it was time to roll the sleeves up and go again.”

LARISSA Anderson has been coaching for 25 years.

She doesn’t look old enough for that to be the case but then again the 39-year-old did take up the craft at 14.

As a teenager, Anderson started her own business Courtside Basketball Coaching and made pamphlets, had a database and by 16 was coaching about 60 kids, hiring a court and setting up deals and contra arrangements.

“I worked in an ice cream shop, tried Kmart but I hated it. I always loved coaching and it’s an easy way to make money when you love something,’’ she said.

“I just organised my own little business where I did indi’s with kids and camps and that grew into a role model program in schools as I got older. Any way I could coach, get out there and help them and put back in I really loved it. Coaching’s always been in the blood as much as playing.”

While still playing WNBL for Bulleen, Anderson got her first SEABL job at 26 coaching Nunawading from 2004 until 2007.

She’d move to the Rangers’ SEABL team and coach them from 2010-2012 then 2014-15 winning four championships in five years.

In March last year Anderson’s dream came true when she was appointed Dandenong’s WNBL coach. She took the Rangers to an elimination final in her maiden season and has them sitting pretty in second place on the ladder after seven rounds.

Life off court is hectic for Anderson with husband James, who is also her assistant coach, children Emma, 7, and Cooper, 4, and a PR business with mum Julie.

“I’d like to say I’ve mastered the juggling act but I don’t think you ever do,’’ she said.

“We all accept through national league that our life is going to be absolutely mad and we try to keep it as calm and consistent as possible.

“You just do what you can because these wonderful opportunities to coach at the highest level in the country don’t come around all that often, I’m extremely blessed and lucky and I feel that I’ve worked really hard for my opportunity but you want to make the most of it.

“It would be great to do it full time, so you don’t feel like you’ve constantly got your mind across a million things at once, but who better to do it than a woman, huh?”

Anderson believes knowledge is power and that’s why she regularly speaks to a range of coaches and mentors who have coached at all levels.

“I haven’t worked under a lot of coaches, I’ve gone down a different path and that’s worked for me but I like to take advantage of the amazing talent on offer,’’ she said.

“I will seek out as much feedback and ideas as I possibly can because we’ve got so many coaches who’ve been all over the world and learned from different coaches in different countries and different leagues.”

FIRST-year coach Claudia Brassard has just returned from a tough Victorian road trip where her developing side got over the line by two points in both its games.

“My hair was already grey, I have a good hairdresser,’’ the Canadian-born 41-year-old laughs.

After representing her home country in the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Brassard and husband Mike went backpacking around Australia. She read in the paper that Bulleen had got rid of its import, rang the club, showed up to practice and landed the gig.

She had a season at the Boomers then a year off after having daughter Maya. Brassard linked up with Townsville through a contact from a college friend and so began a long and fruitful association with the Fire.

Brassard played and captained the team, joined the board then was Chris Lucas’ assistant coach for three years, three grand finals and two titles before taking the reins from him this season.

“It’s a rollercoaster and different to what I was expecting, just having that every day responsibility of saying and addressing the right things and making sure all your players are happy on and off-court,’’ she said.

“That constant pressure of making sure everything is heading in the right direction is pretty full on but I’m surrounded by good staff, assistant coaches and mentors and that’s really important and useful especially for a first-year-coach.

“Already having a relationship with the three in our leadership group, Mia Murray, Kayla Standish and Suzy Batkovic, has been really important.”

Like her counterparts, Brassard says the juggle is hard and it takes a team effort from Mike, Maya now 15 and eight-year-old Oliver.

“The kids like it and sometimes they don’t like it because it takes me away. Movie night is sometimes game film. They come to training and the players are really good with the kids. It has challenges but the kids being apart of it is important to them and me as well,’’ she said.

An engineer at Townsville City Council, Brassard has reduced her hours to a 20-hour work week and takes annual leave for the Fire’s long and regular road trips.

“I go to the stadium and do individuals each morning, go to work for four hours then go back to training,’’ she said.

“It’s hard but it’s all about preparation, being organised and knowing what you have to do and when. I think being an engineer gives me another outlet to be challenged in so my brain’s not always thinking about basketball.”

Brassard said she was always going to coach because she loves the sport and the reward of having an influence on her players.

“Being around the game and these high performing athletes is an amazing opportunity I’m thankful for every day, being able to work with such dedicated, committed sportswomen is quite exceptional,’’ she said.

“Some of the players on my team are the best in the world and not everyone gets to work with those type of athletes every day.”