By Paddy Regester
Another 2020 story, only this one has a happy ending…
While driving home from training through the suburbs of Brisbane, West Coast Fever Head Coach Stacey Marinkovich gets the phone call that she’s been anxiously waiting for all day.
Her car speakers tell her that it’s Stacey West, Netball Australia’s Executive General Manager of Performance.
The only passenger in her car, Matthew, her nine-month-old son, has been as quiet as a mouse all day. A perfect angel, that is, until this exact moment.
Stacey answers the phone, when you’re nearly six months into the hiring process of netball’s most prestigious job and the woman running the show calls, you answer, come hell or screaming baby.
West tells Stacey that Netball Australia CEO Marne Fechner is on the call with her. Of course, she is.
Stacey pulls over, grabs Matthew, and listens while West and Fechner tell her the most exciting news of her life.
She does a victory dance on the footpath then asks Siri to call her husband Lindsay. She has just been named the 15th Australian Diamonds Head Coach.
“It was very bizarre.” Marinkovich admitted.
“There had been a lot of phone calls back and forth, trying to organise times to catch up. COVID has certainly added it’s complications with us being in a hub and playing two games a week and everything that goes with that.”
Despite being born and raised in the south side of Brisbane, Marinkovich has called Western Australia her netball home since joining the Perth Orioles in 2002, where she played before retiring in 2009 at the Fever.
When it was confirmed that all eight Suncorp Super Netball would be required to hub in Queensland for the majority of the condensed 2020 season, Marinkovich looked on the bright side. At least she had family in Brisbane.
“The beauty of the whole situation is, that night my family was all together at my parents place for the usual get together that they do, so I walked in and was able to share it with all of them, all at the one time. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if it was a normal season.”
“To be able to do that with my siblings and parents was just incredible.”
Being named the Diamonds Head Coach is the fulfilment of a lifelong dream for Marinkovich, who began her coaching career as an Assistant Coach at the Fever under the legendary Norma Plummer in 2012.
Two years later, she’s named the Fever Head Coach. Four years after that she comes within three goals of winning the Fever’s first Grand Final and being named the Joyce Brown Coach of the Year.
“Once I saw applications had opened, I thought this is something that I have been working towards all throughout my career, through the development opportunities that have been provided by Netball Australia, through the roles that I’ve played in Netball WA and coaching the Fever in the best competition in the world.”
“I told myself ‘you’ve evolved your skillset. You’ve been challenged on all layers of the pathway. You’ve learned so much’ and I think all of those things gave me the confidence to go for it.”
Six months, a pandemic, half a Suncorp Super Netball season and countless interviews later, going for it has paid off for Marinkovich.
So, what can Australian netball fans expect to see from their new Head Coach?
“I guess I’m a holistic and modern coach.”
“My coaching philosophy has always been to evolve my athletes by embedding a collaborative purpose, generate principles and standards that enable players, support staff, stakeholders and the wider netball community to thrive and advance towards sustained success.”
