Rachael Sporn, came from a Victorian country town with a population of 300. She would also captain and vice-captain the Opals for four years.
Theoretically Rachael Sporn is a Victorian. She was born in a tiny grain-growing town in the Murray Mallee just inside the Victorian border. Murrayville has a population of approximately 300 people.
Rachael Sporn is a sporting household name in South Australia. She has genuine warmth, is personable, articulate and a popular and inspirational public speaker.
She played 377 WNBL games and was drafted into the WNBA with the Detroit Shock for three seasons.
Her personal records are phenomenal.
She is a triple Olympian with three Olympic medals:
Under her 1994-2004 captaincy, Sporn led the Adelaide Lightning to five WNBL Championships – in 1990, 94, 95, 96 and 98.
She earned the high honour of being awarded the WNBL’s Most Valuable Player in 1996 and 1997. In addition, she was named to the WNBL All-Star-Five a phenomenal eight times.
Rachael Sporn demonstrated high level consistency – the hallmark of a champion – but also rose when the pressure was at its most intense, evidenced by her two-time WNBL grand final MVP.
She also captained and vice-captained the Opals for four years. Her long, lean body allowed her to play at the highest level until she was 36. She played her first WNBL game for West Adelaide when she was 17.
Following her retirement, Rachael Sporn’s fluent and knowledgeable communication skills revealed themselves publicly as a basketball commentator with Channel Seven for the 2008, 2012, 2020 Olympic Games, as well as a WNBL commentator with ABC TV and radio.
She was rightfully inducted into the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame in 2007, inducted into the SA Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 and awarded an Order of Australia (OAM) in 2015.
