What drives Liz Cambage’s fight for gender and racial equality in sport

The relentless verbal attacks in the schoolyard cut Liz Cambage to the core and instilled a strength and determination to fight for fairness that consumes the basketball star to this day.

For all the bravado, bum twerks and Twitter fights, Liz Cambage takes pride in being a role model and a voice for the next generation of female athletes.

Just like NBA superstar LeBron James, Cambage is unapologetic when it comes to calling out sexism, racism, and inequality on social media.

The towering WNBA and Australian Opals basketball star created headlines again this week when she called out the lack of diversity in a pre-Games photo shoot for the Australian Olympic Committee’s underwear sponsor.

Liz Cambage’s fight for equality dates back to her schoolyard days.

Cambage accused the AOC of “whitewashing” just ahead of the planned launch of their Reconciliation Action Plan in early June.

“If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times, how am I meant to represent a country that doesn’t even represent me. Australia, wake the f**k up,” Cambage said on Instagram.

The AOC may not have liked Cambage’s stinging delivery that went out to her 77,000-plus followers but they conceded there was some merit in her comments, prompting them to apologise and declare it intends to include more diverse voices in the future.

In an interview for the book, Hoop Dreams Down Under, Cambage spoke candidly about why she’s loud and brash.

“Because when I make noise and speak on issues, I’m not fighting for me,” said Cambage. “I’m fighting for all of us. I’m fighting for our future.”

Cambage’s lifelong push for racial equality dates back to the day she was called ‘dirty’ in the schoolyard because of the colour of her skin.

Years before Cambage starred on the WNBA, WNBL, European and Olympic stages, she was regularly subjected to taunts growing up in Coffs Harbour and Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

Cambage has represented Australia at two Olympics.

She has Nigerian heritage through her father, which sparked disrespectful comments from her fellow students.

This caused a lot of confusion and frustration.

“I guess I didn’t really understand what the kids were saying to me,” Cambage said in Hoop Dreams Down Under.

“Also, why they’d tell me that they didn’t want to hang out with me because I looked dirty.

“I never really understood things like that until I moved to America, where people of colour are really embraced and put to the forefront.

“In the States is when I learnt about racism and I started to learn and embrace who I was.”

Cambage was also singled out for her height at school.

She has always been a tall girl and some children thought they’d poke fun at her with “stupid” comments.

Liz Cambage posed for the 2019 ESPN 'The Body Issue'. Picture: Sophy Holland/ESPN

The relentless verbal attacks cut Cambage to the core, but it also instilled a strength and determination to fight for fairness.

She once said: “If I do get offended, you’ll probably know about it because I’m very honest and I don’t hold back when it comes to speaking my mind.

“I probably have taught a few people a lesson when it comes to opening their mouth and maybe thinking before you speak.”

Much of Cambage’s resilient and strong-minded attitude comes from her mother, Julia.

As a single parent and successful CEO of the Architects Australia Institute in Melbourne, she has taught her daughter to be driven and determined to achieve her dreams.

“She really taught me not to take bull***t from anyone and to do what I want to do in life and be who I want to be,” Cambage said.

Cambage originally wanted to become a designer and enrolled in a fashion business course at the Melbourne School of Fashion during her second professional stint in the WNBL at the Bulleen Boomers in 2009.

Cambage is set to play in the latest WNBA season.

Unfortunately, Cambage couldn’t juggle study and sport so she decided to focus solely on her budding basketball career.

It was a decision that paid the ultimate dividend in 2011 when she was selected by the Tulsa Shock with the 2nd overall pick in the WNBA draft.

Today, Cambage is one of Australia’s most successful, interesting, and outspoken athletes.

She also isn’t scared to break the mould, putting herself front and centre, as seen through her recent modelling stint for Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty lingerie brand.

Cambage’s determination to fight for gender equality in sport follows on from the work started by trailblazers in women’s basketball like Opals legends Michelle Timms and Kristi Harrower, who pushed hard for 10 years for the same business class travel the Boomers receive.

“It was introduced after she retired, so now every time I fly business class with the Opals I just think about Kristi and how much she pushed for it,” Cambage said.

“That is what I stay focused on whenever I’m speaking on women in sport issues or women issues in general.

“I’m not just talking about me – I’m talking about all of us.”

Liz Cambage will never apologise for speaking out. Picture: Brendan Radke

And when she cops heavy backlash like she did for her aggressive stance on the “whitewash” comments, Cambage unapologetically fights back. Even harder.

“There are two people in this world. There are the people who have the balls to stand up and say something and make change; that’s me. That’s me. I was born for this,” she said.

“I am such a narcissist, I am such a psycho bitch that all the hate that you give me, I love it. It turns me on. It makes me go harder, it makes me push for more.

“And then the second type of people in this world, that’s the people that are intimidated and scared and insecure, and hide behind fake profiles and talk s--t because you’re too scared to do anything. Too scared to take a stand for anything.

“But don’t worry, I gotcha. I’m out here talking my s--t with my big arse mouth, being a big old bitch and making change, baby. Making changes.”