C-Bass, the gangly kid who proved the critics wrong, calls time on her career

Former Australian captain Caitlin Bassett has opened up on the high and lows of her incredibly successful 18-year netball career.

Caitlin Bassett, with dogs Chino, Giulio and Andre, is ready to take a break

Caitlin Bassett was once the tall, gangly kid with no confidence. A child too afraid to stand up in front of the class and play the clarinet. She admits she was born with little natural netball talent, taking up the sport at the “late age of 11”, but that didn’t stop her from going on to dominate the game.

It’s really been against all the odds that Bassett has become a netball superstar. It has been her steely grit, an aptitude for hard work, that saw her rise up to not only play for her country but become Australian captain.

And after a netball career spanning 18 years, where she won gold at the Commonwealth Games, was part of a world champion team twice, Bassett has decided to retire.

After multiple concussions, broken bones, too many painkilling injections to remember in her hips and feet, it is her knees that have finally given way. Even that once reliable medical trick of taking her own blood, spinning it around and injecting it into her struggling knees, is no longer working.

“My body has let me down before, but I’ve always found a way to get around it,” Bassett, 33, said.” Now it’s time to listen to what my body is telling me and retire,”

Despite being the incumbent Australian captain she was overlooked for a Super Netball contract this season, but Bassett had not lost hope in her career. After having an operation on both knees, she was hoping to act as a training partner for a Super Netball team and went so far as to train with the NSW Men’s team in preparation.

However it was after training with the boys a few weeks ago that she knew she was done.

“I couldn’t walk after that practice session with the men,” Bassett said.

On Friday Bassett told The Weekend Australian in an exclusive interview that she was readying for the next phase of her life but thankful for what netball had given her.

One of the greatest lessons she has learnt from the sport is that hard work is everything. It’s been the cornerstone of her career.

Bassett spent countless hours in the backyard developing her “netty” skills with her older sister Rhiannon. By age 14 she was in the WA team and was then dreaming of bigger things. In her final year of high school she was playing for the Perth Orioles and at just 16 was lining up against legendary Australian defender and captain Liz Ellis.

“As a teenager, netball gave me self-confidence, belief in myself, that if I worked hard I could do anything,” she said.

There was a moment off the court early on in her career that defined her approach to the game. It was when she was a teenager playing for Western Australia and the then captain of the Orioles, Sam Andrews, addressed the playing group. Later Andrews would tell her something that would stick with her.

“She once said to me, ‘People said to me all the time, you’re so lucky’. And she said: “Well, I am not lucky, I work really hard and I make sacrifices’,” Bassett said.

“That stuck with me; that you make your own luck. And hard work for me has created luck. I’m not a natural athlete and I’ve had to work really hard at things others can do easily. I’ve found success by doing the extra stuff like putting in the time before and after training to go over skills, saying no to partying on the weekends, putting the right food in my body. All those things that I’ve done that I haven’t necessarily enjoyed have bought me the results that I’ve wanted.”

Those results include two World Cups — in 2011 she scored the winning goal in extra time in the final. A career highlight was the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. She had missed out on making the Delhi Commonwealth Games squad in 2010 and was “devastated” — but competing in Glasgow was everything she had hoped for. The team won gold.

“I had worked really, really hard to get to Glasgow and we had an amazing final,” she said. “I was fortunate enough to have my family in the UK to support me and we went travelling together afterwards. I have great memories of that time.”

Along with her international team success she won two Suncorp Super Netball Championships (2017-18). In the 2018 championship she was named the MVP. She was also named the World’s Best Netballer in 2015 and was the first shooter to win the Liz Ellis Diamond Award.

Bassett was first made captain of the Diamonds in 2017 after being selected by her peers and with the support of coach Lisa Alexander. In 2019, Bassett became just the fifth Australian to play 100 Tests and will finish with 102 to her name.

Alexander had a “massive” influence on her career and said her holistic approach on player wellbeing helped her and her teammates greatly. Alexander, currently the high-performance director with the London Pulse, says she “dored” coaching “C-Bass”.

“I was in awe of her ability to remain ice cool when the heat was on and whilst she took all the physicality thrown her way,” Alexander said.

“Caitlin was instrumental in forging the path for better resources around athlete wellbeing back when we had to fight for it tooth and nail. Today it is high-performance practice. Caitlin was ahead of the curve in this space.

“And finally as her coach I was always grateful for her ability to put the team ahead of herself and to provide a laser-like assessment of the team performance. Caitlin truly encapsulated the sisters in arms trademark of the Australian Diamonds and the mantra ‘we before me’.”

Bassett also credits her teammates — particularly the likes of star shooter Nat Medhurst, Julie Corletto and Laura Geitz — as the reason why her career was so successful.

“I think a lot of my success has obviously been based on the people around me, playing with the likes of Nat Medhurst was so incredible,” she said.

However, the straight-talking former Australian captain is not one to gloss over the raw truth of her experience. She says the sport has left her with a fierce inner critic which is constantly questioning almost everything going on in her life.

“My identity for my entire adult life has been netball with a win or a loss determining my self-worth. If I am no longer a netballer who the hell am I?” Bassett said.

The last 18 months for C Bass have been tumultuous. There was a split from the Giants after the then Australian captain was overlooked for a starting spot. She moved to New Zealand, with an aim to get lots of court time to maintain up her fitness for the Diamonds, but she ended up injuring both knees. She then missed out on a Super Netball contract.

“I think what has happened in the last 18 months has, to be frank, been shit, but I can genuinely walk away knowing that I have left no stone unturned in trying to get my career back on track. While it’s not the fairytale ending I would have loved, the silver lining is I have discovered which people are genuinely there for me in my life.”

“When you’re the Australian captain, people want to know you and they’ll message you and hang out with you, but when things aren’t going so well it’s when you find out who really cares.”

Early on, the sport often kept her in an anxious state of being. She remembers most days as she travelled to training in Perth breaking into tears as she stressed about what the session would entail. It would be a move to the Sunshine Coast that would bring the most joy, but recent years have tossed up some difficult moments she is currently not missing.

“I reckon the mantra that I would have repeated my entire career is ‘just get through this week’. I‘ve said that to myself a billion times,” Bassett said.

“But having the last six months to kind of just be (because she was injured) has made me realise that what I was living in was a ridiculously stressful environment.”

“You know, to do it for two, four, six, eight, 10 years, let alone double that … I can’t believed I have lived like that for so long. This break has made me realise I don’t want that lifestyle anymore.”

Bassett has been appearing on Fox Sports netball’s coverage, she is hoping to launch a program that focuses on helping elite athletes navigate the treacherous world of social media and with a communications degree is hoping to establish a media career.

But currently? She is pet sitting to pay the rent.

Standing at 196cm, some of her critics have contended that her physical height was, at times, the only reason she was there in the mix with the elite. Bassett is very aware of those observations.

The longevity of her career is testament to not only her mental strength and true tale in how perseverance can write a sporting success story. The little girl who was once uncomfortable with her height has proved the naysayers wrong.

“My career has been against all odds,” Bassett said. “I know people, including some of my teammates, at times, didn‘t believe that I should be in the Australian team because they thought I wasn’t good enough.

“I‘ve always had people telling me; ‘I’m not good enough’. And in return I have set my focused on proving them wrong.”