The Tamworth resident, who grew up in Geelong, moved to Indiana at 18 years old to pursue basketball, which she did on a scholarship to Vincennes University.

After completing her two-year athletic training course, she returned to Australia and settled in Melbourne to complete a degree in podiatry and continue playing the sport she loves.

But the seed for Watson's journey was planted years before she left the country, while she was in Year 9.

"I didn't like the fact that basketball wasn't a very big sport in Australia, I knew America was the place to be," Watson said.

"So when I started learning about going to college, I thought 'Why not [go to America]?"

From that moment on, Watson began compiling a 'resume' of sorts, which included putting together game tapes, and sending them in with her college applications.

She was successful, and in 2014 she touched down in Indiana, where she found a "pretty amazing environment" in which to indulge her basketball.

"It was a big college town, so pretty much anything revolved around the college," Watson said.

"Any sports or anything like that, you pretty much had the whole town looking out for it. It was pretty exciting, having all those crowds around, you had support bands, cheerleaders to every game, and mascots."

Although she did consider staying in the US to pursue professional basketball, Watson returned to Victoria in 2015 once she had completed her initial qualifications, and began studying podiatry at La Trobe University in Melbourne.

But after six years, in which she played for three different teams, the 26-year-old found herself yearning for change.

"For most of 2021, I was living in Melbourne working as a private podiatrist before realising I wasn't really enjoying it as much," Watson said.

"I wanted to explore my options and I started looking out for other jobs, and that's when the Tamworth job came up."

Initially, when she arrived in town last September, Watson did not intend to carry on playing basketball.

But when the Tamworth Thunderbolts held tryouts for their new senior women's team, she decided to come along. Though she ended up trialing with the boys due to low availability among the women, it ended up being "a lot of fun".

Watson's basketball pedigree quickly became evident, and once she met women's coach Tony Higgins and the rest of the team, everything clicked.

"They all seemed really, really lovely, so I thought I may as well stick around and play for them," she said.

Given her background in the sport, Higgins approached Watson to see if she would be open to co-captaining the side in 2022.

"I felt like it was a good idea, because coming in as a bit of an outsider, I can have my opinions on everything," she said.

"A lot of the girls do trust me and listen to me as well."

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