How Chloe Molloy went from pursuing a career in the WNBA to chasing her AFLW dreams

After years planning and huge sacrifices, Chloe Molloy was finally about to realise her US college scholarship basketball dream. The only problem was, she now had a different dream.

Scott Gowans has loved having Chloe Molloy at the Swans. Picture: Getty Images

It all started with a note under her parents’ bedroom door.

Chloe Molloy had aspirations to earn a US college scholarship for basketball, with everything tailored towards a dip at the big time – with the WNBA firmly in her sights.

The family boat was sold to help fund her dream, Year 12 subjects selected in a bid to boost her scholarship prospects and it worked. Molloy was offered three NCAA Division 1 college scholarships to play basketball Stateside.

“We’ve got three kids (including Chloe) and we want all their dreams to come true,” Molloy’s mum Deb recalled this week.

“(Sean and I) are pretty invested parents – getting them to trainings, all that stuff … we lived in Whittlesea, so anywhere was an hour-plus (to get to).

“She’d said ‘I want to be the best I can in basketball – I want to go to college’, so it was ‘yep, OK, let’s start that on and what do you need to do’.

“We sold our family boat to make sure she had enough money to pay for the flights (for one tour).”

Chloe Molloy has made a huge impact at the Swans. Picture: Getty Images

But after her exams, and months of basketball beckoning, things had shifted.

“(It became) Chloe wants to play football,” Molloy’s mum Deb recalled this week with a laugh.

With AFLW still in its infancy, Deb’s reaction remains palpable.

“Are you kidding me?,” she laughed.

“It had been a massive investment. But we’ve always said ‘do what makes you happy’.

“She told us by slipping a note under our bedroom door.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t think she could do it, but it was like, ‘can’t you just do (the basketball) first and then go to footy?’.

“I gave her this clip that was about how they’d interviewed 100 people on their deathbed, and what did they regret the most … every single one of them said the things that they didn’t do. My angle was let’s go to college and then you can’t regret it.

“She was like ‘you’re absolutely right, mum … I’ve got to play footy’. So it kind of backfired on me. But she was right – she would have regretted it.

“She just always knew what was right for her, even as a child. She has always made really good decisions. Anything she’s made a decision about hasn’t been wrong for her.”

Molloy, now 24, won the league’s rising star in her first season of AFLW – at Collingwood.

At the end of last season, the star forward made the difficult decision to leave the foundation club, moving north to Sydney – for just its second season.

Chloe Molloy was set for a career in basketball before her switch to football.

There was the football element for Molloy – the chance to lead a side in its infancy – but she is aware of her influence and voice as the competition continues to take vital steps of growth.

She signed her contract from a hospital bed, laid up after back surgery, and as a semi-final looms on Saturday night – a year after the Swans went winless in their inaugural season – the argument has shifted to whether any other player has had such an impact upon moving clubs.

Sydney coach Scott Gowans, who first coached Molloy as a teenager at Diamond Creek and laughed to this masthead earlier this year that the co-captain would let herself in the back door of his house, where he’d often find her on his own couch, said this week he had faith in her ability to have an immediate effect on his team.

“I always thought she would (have an impact),” he said.

“My only thing was whether she would like Sydney as a city and be able to live here long term. And that was probably the one thing that we spoke about when we caught up was if you do move, you’ve got to commit to a long time because it’s no good coming into it for a year or two and then going back.

Molloy with her family after celebrating a win with the Swans earlier this year.

“But she loves it here and sees it as home which is really great. And that again comes back to the connection piece where she has made great friends within the team and they hang out together and that’s taken some of that moving away from home out of the equation.”

One equation isn’t lying – her statistics.

Molloy’s clearance figures have lifted by almost 70 per cent this season, and her output in front of goal up by just shy of 90 per cent.

She’s thriving.

“I’ve never doubted her,” Deb said.

“My heart was breaking when she was carrying the injuries.

“With her back injury and she played that whole season with the injury, she was having to get the big cortisone needles … now, to watch her – it’s like oh my god, she’s back.

“She is the happiest I’ve seen her for so long. The girls know that she’s going to bring what she brings.

“It’s something about Chloe and it’s her whole life. Life is just better with her in it. She’s got this energy and makes people believe in themselves, as well. Including her mother.”