Written by Julia Montesano
Playing, coaching and training for basketball on a full-time basis is a dream for every up-and-coming player in the world.
And it’s a dream that Southern Tigers spouses Teige and David Morrell are living out.
Teige is currently playing with the Tigers’ Women’s team and coaching in their 5-10-year-old program while David is the head coach of the Men’s team and looks after the club’s junior teams.
He says he is thankful to be in such a position.
“It’s quite a blessing to be able to just do basketball, something that we love, as a full-time lifestyle,” David explains.
“It’s been amazing that the Southern Tigers have given us opportunities to do basketball full-time.
“It’s something we’ll be forever grateful for.”
Teige echoes her husband’s sentiment, saying that even though it means she has to wake up at 6am every day to fit training, weight and recovery sessions in, she wouldn’t change it for the world.
“It’s so amazing to be involved in basketball full-time together,” she says.
“We’re able to take a breather and catch up during the day after our coaching and playing commitments.
“Sometimes I have to pinch myself thinking about how blessed we are.”
Of course, it took a lot of hard work to get to where they are today.
After Teige finished college at the University of Nevada, she decided to begin her professional career on the other side of the world in Australia while David joined the ride to take his coaching talents down under.
For Teige, Australia is a place where she has felt she has always belonged after her parents met in Perth.
But as much as she loves the country, she equally loves to travel and explore the world, which COVID-19 has hindered.
She says travelling is in her “family blood” after her Zimbabwean mother and American father conceived Teige and her three brothers in Dubai, Australia, Cyprus and America, respectively.
“I suppose when we first came to Australia for our first professional year outside of college, we started to envision that we would travel to a lot of other places, especially Europe,” Teige says.
“But everything in Australia fell into place.
“David gets to live out his dream and I get to live out mine.
“We just love the culture here and the fact that Australians really value holidays and travel.
“We thought for now that Adelaide was a great spot to settle down.
“Obviously, we haven’t done much travelling, but our hope is to go and explore the world a bit more.”
This has been made harder by Australia’s current border restrictions, with David and Teige keen to get back to the United States to see family that they haven’t been with in over two years.
But for now, they’re both enjoying life in the new NBL1 Central competition, with David’s Men’s team sitting second on the ladder while Teige and the Women are undefeated.
Teige is also leading the scoring in her team, averaging 19.4 points and 8.1 rebounds in her seven games so far.
She is hoping she can continue this form to get back into the WNBL after she played eight games with the Bendigo Spirit in 2020.
“Getting back to the WNBL is absolutely 100 percent the goal,” the 25-year-old says.
“NBL1 Central is great but having that little taste of WNBL has really motivated me to get back there.
“It’s a great league and I had so much fun playing in it.”
Not only is David working with his wife to get to the elite level, but he is also working with some of the players on his teams who want to take the next step in their careers.
His advice for them is simple.
“I tell them to just keep working,” he says.
“I believe that if you work on your game and you are good enough then basketball tends to work out and be fair.
“If you’re good enough, you’ll get the opportunity.
“You’ve always got to try and improve and do everything you need to do to be good enough.
“If you’re good enough, basketball people will talk to you.”
David believes NBL1 Central is a great start to getting NBL exposure, with the close competition keeping even the big-name teams on their toes.
“I just think it’s a really cool, tough competition, which makes it really exciting,” he says.
“There’s a huge cluster of teams that are championship contenders.
“At this point of the season in most years, you would have a bit more of a clear separation of which teams are clear contenders and which aren’t.
“I think this year in NBL1 Central, there’s no separation of teams and everyone feels like contenders.”
And as far as teams go, there’s nowhere else the Morrells would rather be.
“We’re really enjoying being at the Southern Tigers,” Teige says.
“We fell in love with Adelaide, and it seemed like a really good option to go to the Southern Tigers.
“We really enjoy the community here and the support that we have.
“I think the league itself is really competitive too, I feel like it’s so up and coming.
“It’s only our first year under the NBL umbrella and it’s really exciting, there’s nowhere but up from here.”
