Octavia Williams, a 16-year-old state basketball player and local coach, is advocating for more outdoor courts to keep teens off screens and in better mental shape.
“I’ve had two ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries, and I’ve experienced some hardships with mental health,” Octavia told Manly Observer wearing her rep basketball gear outside of Graham Reserve court in Fairlight.
“[Basketball] was a huge part of my life. So being taken out of it, I honestly didn’t know what to do, and it was so important to me to keep driving my mental health in other ways, which is why I became so passionate about making a difference.”
The idea was curated from her own experience and a statistic she said she found in the 2023/24 Playing Catch Up report which saw a need for 136 more basketball courts around NSW.
The report states that NSW sports funding has not changed since 2000. NSW is last in the country when it comes to providing core funding to basketball, offering only $55,000 which seems like pennies in comparison to the $400,000 QLD allocates for the sport.
The bulk of the problem then lies with the facilitation of – or lack of – basketball courts as young players are being turned away due to court shortages around the Northern Beaches, Lower North Shore and Eastern Suburbs, causing extensive waiting lists for players.
PCYC Northern Beaches is one of the local Indoor Sports Centres that is experiencing this issue first-hand. The branch’s sector manager, Kyrah Hush, says more facilities need to be distributed among the beaches to cater to the increased popularity of sports.
“Yes this is a big issue we are facing. We only have 2 courts. We have an extensive waitlist for all our competitions, Junior Basketball, Men’s Basketball, Women’s & Mixed Netball, as well as our Junior Learn To Play basketball classes,” Kyrah told Manly Observer.
“There is a real lack of indoor sports facilities on the Northern Beaches. We have to turn away schools, sports teams looking for a training venue and cannot take casual bookings as our programs run from 4pm – 10pm Monday to Friday.
“The only solution is to build more courts in the area, or access school halls/outdoor courts to run offsite competitions.”
Octavia wants to ensure there are adequate outdoor alternatives for kids to hoop among themselves if they’re unable to register for these competitions.
“NSW needs 136 more basketball courts to meet its current demand, and that’s just indoor for organised teams who want to play in a competition. This doesn’t account for the thousands of other kids who struggle to find an outdoor court every day, to just shoot some hoops,” she said.
“I feel like by providing kids more courts and more opportunity to play basketball, it helps them get off their screens and interact with other students, other kids their age.”
The teen says there are places to play on the Northern Beaches, however, many courts are only half size or are constantly crowded.
Some of her solutions, in delegating space for the courts, include adding, “half courts in grass areas such as Millers’ Reserve which goes unused for the majority of the year,” or sharing the space at John Fisher Park in North Curl Curl which is primarily occupied by netball courts.
“From personal experience my mum and my younger brother drive around endlessly to find courts available because they’re always crowded or we can’t find a court within our vicinity that’s available,” she added.
“I think that Curl Curl could definitely utilise more basketball courts. The ratio is ridiculous because there’s only one half basketball court, and there are so many netball courts.”
Octavia originally suggested implementing additional outside basketball courts around the Northern Beaches at the most recent Lions Australia Youth of the Year Competition – an organisation dedicated to helping the vulnerable in their local communities. She was the district final winner for the club’s Youth of the Year Competition in March earlier this year.
The Manly Campus student’s dedication to supporting mental health has made her stand out within her community even before her outdoor court advocacy. Over the past two years, she has helped raise $20,000 for the Push Up Challenge at her school – unsurprisingly putting a basketball spin on the fundraiser.
“I and another student at our school were student ambassadors for the Push Up Challenge. We implemented it in our school, and it took off massively. I implemented the three-point challenge, which was essentially students competing head to head and shooting three-pointers for basketball,” she said.
“We had built a new gym at our school, and so we wanted to use that to ensure that we could get exposure for that and show kids the importance of the facility and how that can improve your mental health.”
The initiative raised $12,000 last year and another $8,000 this year. Competitive as ever, Octavia says that although she got out in the second round of the competition, she’s just enthusiastic to have had an impact on the lives of young kids, but the loss may be a reason to revisit the fundraiser next year.
In the meantime, the young achiever still has plenty on her plate, using her newfound interest in the mental health space to influence her initiatives as a Yugambeh woman and the elected president of the Gawura Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG).
“On the Northern Beaches, a lot of indigenous people are off country, and sometimes that goes unnoticed. Where we don’t have that connection to our country, to be able to explore our culture and language, that’s really important so that we can improve our mental health,” she explained.
“I created a program called For You. It is to provide information, guidance, cultural support and mentorship to First Nations young people on the Northern Beaches. The idea was we could improve their mental health so they could improve their outcomes in the future through employment, education and sport and to show them pathways and avenues to succeed later in life.”
With already such a developed interest in competitive sport, the mental health landscape and Indigenous education, it felt only natural to ask the young 16-year-old what her plans for the future are. It was no surprise those plans involved giving back to the community through studying medicine and attending Harvard University.
“There’s a lot up in the air because I am very ambitious,” she said.
“You never know where life might take you. However, I’ve always been interested in going to Harvard, going to college in America for basketball. However, I really like the program at the University of Sydney. I actually am a real big advocate for keeping homegrown talent on Australian soil.”
“I would also like to be able to give back to my community through medicine, that would be really helpful to improve those areas, especially for indigenous people in rural communities.”
With that Octavia reveals she has a lot to shoot for, but with the young local’s track record of proactive initiatives within her community space, it seems adamant that whatever she aims for she won’t miss.
