Kathleen playing basketball

Imagine growing up in a small town in Missouri, America.

You dream about playing basketbal l. All you want to do is get into the professional leagues – but you’re not sure how to get there.

And yet by the time you’re 23, you’re playing professional basketball in Australia.

That’s the reality for Kathleen Scheer – one of the incredibly talented American girls that has come to Australia to take part in our basketball teams. She started out with Bendigo, played with the Hobart Lady Chargers for awhile, and is now a forward for the Sydney Flames.

We’ve got some truly remarkable international players across our Aussie teams, and it’s time that we celebrate some of their successes.

I asked Kathleen to tell us a bit more about her story and how she got to be in Australia, all the way from Missouri…

And in other sports news from the week…

Sally Fitzgibbons surfing

– Sally Fitzgibbons won the Fiji Pro this week, which was another stop on the world championship surfing tour. It’s her second win in a row after winning the Brazil Pro a few weeks ago.

Sally managed to beat her fellow Aussie rival, Stephanie Gilmore, 9.00 points to Gilmore’s 8.73. The pair faced three-metre waves at Cloudbreak reef in Fiji – several other competitors snapped boards on the reef, and one even surfed with a broken wrist after hitting it on the shallow reef.

This win puts Sally in second place for the world championship title. You can go here to read about her journey to the top so far.

– Despite our Australian women’s rugby team being ridiculously talented, coming in at second place in the world, they won’t get a chance to compete in the Commonwealth Games this year.

The Games are coming up in Glasgow in July – however, they don’t offer a competition slot for any female rugby team. The male teams have the competition slots.

“They say ‘stick to a girly sport, you don’t want to mess up a pretty face’,” Tiana Penitani told SBS News.

While rugby for both men and women will be included in the Rio Olympics in 2016, that’s not much consolation for the girls who are keen to get over to the Games now.

You can go here to read our interview with one of the players from our female Rugby Sevens team.

– The Matildas lost out to Japan in the grand final of the Asian Cup on Monday. They lost 1-0 loss to the world champion in Ho Chi Minh City. However, by reaching the semi-finals, Australia has qualified for the World Cup in Canada next year.

– Our women’s water polo team, the Aussie Stingers, managed a thrilling 7-5 victory over the USA in the gold medal final of the 2014 FINA World League Intercontinental Cup in Riverside, California. Congrats, ladies.

– Today is the first ever National Netball Day. Good luck to all netballers, young and old, out on the court today. Make sure you wear blue and get involved in whatever your association has planned.

Have you seen anything in the sporting world that you’d like to talk about?