In honour of International Women's Day for 2022, Netball SA celebrated seven women throughout last week who have made significant contributions to the game of netball.
Below is the full list, with each of their stories, plus a photo and quote on what netball means to them.
Katie Liebelt:
Katie's netball journey began in the country at age 8 for South Clare Netball. A successful junior career included multiple premierships, debuting in A1 at 15 and representation at Association level for NENA, Northern Region and U17 State Country.
After school, Liebelt moved to Adelaide for study and work, playing Premier League for 7 years, representing SA in the U19 and U21 National Championships, Ravens National Netball League Squad and coaching for Netball SA clinics.
Katie returned to the country in 2005, beginning a 15 year A grade coaching stint back at her home club, including 4 A1 Premierships and 7 Association Best and Fairests.
Liebelt's passion for coaching and playing has continued at the next level as playing coach for her beloved North Eastern Netball Association (NENA) at Netball SA's Senior Country Championships, including two A Grade Championship wins and multiple Top 10 selections.
Liebelt has played and coached the Open State Country Representative team, which she will do again in 2022. As a teacher, Katie has also coached heavily at a school and SAPSASA level.
Off the court, Liebelt has continued to volunteer and take on extensive administration roles including NENA Association President, Coach & Clinics Coordinator and Club President.
Her passion lies though in giving back though organising extensive coaching and playing clinics at a club, school and association level, including leading Netball SA Coaching Courses throughout SA to provide opportunities for our country people.
Mary Hewett:
Mary first started playing Netball when she was 8 years old for Gulnare-Redhill Netball Club and her last year playing was with Broughton Mundoora Netball Club in 2005 when injury put a stop on her playing days. However, she was lucky to play with her eldest daughter for a few matches before she retired.
She also played for South Adelaide, Chequers (in Darwin for 3 years) and Broughton Mundoora. She’s unsure of her exact number of games but with 34 years of playing, the number must be big!
Over the years she has also coached, umpired and held many positions for Broughton Mundoora Netball Club, Northern Areas Netball Association, Northern Region and the Country Championships Organising Committee.
She was honoured to receive Life Membership for Broughton Mundoora Netball Club in 2004 and Life Membership for Northern Areas Netball Association in 2014.
Mary and her husband have a family farm near Port Broughton and she feels lucky to have 3 children all who have partners and 1.5 grandchildren. She has worked in a Real Estate office for 19 years (retired now) and still works one day a fortnight as a Chiropractor receptionist. No rest for Mary yet!
Christine Glenn:
Christine started her netball journey in the Riverland, South Australia where she participated in school netball then branched out to the Berri Netball Club as a junior.
While playing netball, she started to coach, team manage and act as administrator to the game at age 19. This quickly turned into a passion, which led Christine to founding Kaleteeya Netball Club in 2011. Kaleteeya focusses on Aboriginal participation, development, and opportunities.
Over the years Christine, as the founder of Kaleteeya, has provided year-round netball programs for Aboriginal children from ages 5 – 17 and seniors. The programs have provided opportunities to hundreds of Aboriginal athletes.
Christine has also been heavily involved in the South Australian Aboriginal Secondary Training Academy (SAASTA) on the Aboriginal Netball Academy. Where she’s been employed since 2017 as an assistant coach, specialist coach and mentor. During her time at SAASTA, Christine started to work with Netball SA as a community coach on the Sporting Schools Australia program. As well as an Advisory member of the Reconciliation Action Plan Committee.
Christine’s dedication and application to the sport has led to recognition and awards along the way including Australia Post One Netball Community Award - Winner 2016, Channel 9 Young Achiever Aboriginal Achievement Award - Winner 2018, and 2020 Vanessa Dempsey Award – Winner, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Community Engagement.
Other proud achievements in netball to Christine are winning Adelaide Plains Netball Association (APNA) A1 R/Up, Team of the Year, A1 best and fairest and club champion for Virginia Rams all in 2015, selected into the 2022 Southern Dragons Mixed Squad for National Men’s and Mixed Championships and Club Captain of Angle Vale for 2022 APNA season.
Christine’s main passion in the game is supporting and providing opportunities for first nations athletes to love, succeed and feel welcomed in the world of netball.
Heather Coutts:
Heather started playing netball at age 6, started umpiring at 12, started coaching at 16 when Jan Sutherland (my City Night Rep Coach) told her that coaching would add to her playing game.
Heather started mentoring in 2006, when she got her C Badge for the second time (national, as she only had state previously), She then got her B Badge in 2007.
Heather has played, coached and umpired State Indoors and has travelled to South Africa umpiring and been selected as an Australian Indoor umpire three times. With the injuries hitting her and with Netball SA making clubs provide Bench Officials, Marlene Lang talked her into jumping on the bench, and she has been there ever since.
Heather said she has been fortunate enough to attend AMMNA nationals as an Umpire and Bench Official, ANL and SSN games, and her goal is to Bench officiate at the Olympic games, Commonwealth used to be her goal.
As a player and as a coach, she has been very successful and in the last year, she played and coached in premiership sides, and she mentors, umpires and coaches.
This year she is the Oakdale Premier League Program Manager, a role she sees as a chance to give back to the club that has housed her for 36 years, where she got her life membership when Covid hit.
Marg Angove OAM:
While many people across our netball community will already be familiar with Marg’s incredible journey in our sport, instead she shared with us a list of her favourite achievements from over the years:
- Selected as coach for the Netball SA Team of the Century
- Awarded Australian Female Team Coach of the Year in 2000 by the Australian Sports Commission
- Awarded an OAM for services to Netball
- Has been involved in coaching overseas, including New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies, Hong Kong, Cooke Islands (as the Australian Men's Team Coach), Sri Lanka and Singapore
- Inaugural Adelaide Thunderbirds Coach from 1997 – 2006, winning two Commonwealth Bank Trophies and never missing a finals round
- Coaching the Adelaide Thunderbirds in 1998 when four South Australian Teams won National Titles – Adelaide Thunderbirds, Adelaide Lightning, Adelaide 36ers and the Adelaide Crows
As important as the achievements were, Marg also wanted to acknowledge the incredible athletes and administration staff she has worked with during her netball career, without whom she says she would not have achieved the success she did. For Marg, the people she’s met along the way have made it all the more special and worthwhile.
Even today, Marg is still heavily involved with Netball SA and the Adelaide Thunderbirds, particularly as the club celebrates its 25th anniversary year in 2022.
Jackie Blyth:
Jackie started playing netball in primary school and coaching at the age of 16yrs when all ‘A’ grade players had to either Coach or Umpire. She has played, coached and mentored, been employed and volunteered with all genders, ages and skill levels, in the city and regional area of South Australia as well as other states and loved every minute of it, especially her time with current Premier League Club Tango Netball Club.
She has played at numerous clubs, Associations, The Country Touring Team and represented the State in U/21yrs. Whilst playing, her coach & mentor, (Rachael May) suggested she take up Coaching, so she attended the very first Coaching Accreditation Course in SA and from then on, realised coaching was her passion.
She started coaching at Club Sub Junior level and moved up each age group until she eventually coached at Senior level winning numerous Premierships at various Clubs and becoming a Life Member of Oakdale Netball Club.
During this time, she also coached state teams which included the only 2yrs that Netball Australia held a U/18yr National Championship and then moved onto the U/19yrs, U/21yr State Team and Open State Team winning 2 National Championships for SA.
She won SASI & AIS Coaching Scholarships which culminated in her employment with Netball Australia and then Netball Tasmania. She loved working within the Sport, especially at the High-Performance level.
After 4yrs, she came home to Adelaide & coached at Premier League, winning a Premiership and then took over the reins for Ravens for a couple of years plus coached the SA Men’s State Team & Australian Men’s Team.
Whilst being busy coaching club netball, state netball, clinics, coaching courses, selecting, assessing and mentoring, she was honoured with a Netball SA Life Membership and the Australian Medal for Sporting Achievements in 2000.
Jackie loves meeting new people, learning new skills, both life skills and netball skills and passing on her philosophy, which is ‘Kaizen’ (continuous improvement).
Roz Frazer:
Roz started playing netball in her early teens as swimming was her sport growing up.
Her family moved a lot, so she didn’t get too involved in netball until she was older, then played a lot, sometimes up to four times a week while raising a family and working. Roz has played netball in various competitions in 4 states and 1 territory (NT) - Tassie, Victoria, NSW and of course SA. SA was the start of getting involved in Masters competitions starting with the Honda Master Games in Alice Springs back in the 80’s, which led to the Australian and World Masters Games winning gold, silver and bronze medals over the years.
Coaching soon became her passion and she now feels very lucky to have been involved at various levels from club and representative netball along with Academy coaching in regional NSW, to club and what was at the time our State League here in SA.
So, her passion eventually turned into her career when she joined Netball TAS in 2007 in a coaching role and set up the Academy program. She travelled to Perth to undertake her Level 2 (Advanced) Coaching accreditation during this time as there was no course available in Tasmania and she wanted to continue to learn. She met some amazing people there who taught her a lot.
In 2008, Roz moved back to NSW and commenced a role with Netball NSW where she worked for 4 years before returning to South Australia and a new role with Netball SA. March 13, 2022, marks ten years for Roz with Netball SA.
Her involvement in netball has also allowed her to participate at not only club level but also at the elite level of our sport and she has worked in a voluntary capacity at competitions such as international test matches, Fast5, Netball World Cup and Commonwealth Games as a Team Liaison.
Roz feels so lucky to have played and worked with so many amazing people, who she is now very fortunate to say have become her great friends.
