Lauren Jackson AO is widely regarded as one of the greatest Australian female basketballers of all-time. She was a star franchise player for Seattle in the WNBA and shone on the international stage with four medals for Australia at the Olympics. She also won two WNBA titles and seven WNBL championships across a long and distinguished career. But as inspirational as she has been on the court – including a comeback at 40 – her work off the court has been equally significant and enduring.

The true mark of an athlete is not necessarily what they get out of their chosen sport, but what they give back into it.
In the case of basketball superstar Lauren Jackson, her reach on and off the court has been far-reaching, and will carry on long beyond her own extraordinary career.
That’s because she has always cared as much about the sport as a whole as she has about her own considerable achievements.
The on-court laurels are easy to see.
On the world stage there were two Women’s National Basketball Association titles with Seattle among a raft of achievements that saw her labelled the best female basketballer in the world.
There was the Opals debut at 16, and then five Olympic medals – three silvers and two bronze – the first as a 19-year-old young gun in Sydney in 2000; the last in Paris in 2024 after making an extraordinary Olympic return at 43.
There have been seven Women’s National Basketball League championships, with his latest in 2024 coming 25 years after her first in 1999.
There were four WNBL MVP awards and four WNBL grand final MVPs to boot.
There was a World Cup gold medal with the Opals in 2006, the same year as they won a Commonwealth Games gold medal in Melbourne.
There was even the elevation as the first Australian player to be inducted into the prestigious Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
When she achieved that feat, in 2021, she said: “I feel like being the first (Australian) athlete and the first female, a lot of young guys will see that and think ‘damn, I can get there as well’.”
“I’m just a girl from country NSW who worked hard to be the best I could be and if that inspires others to follow in my footsteps and chase their own goals and aspirations, then that’s the most enriching award I can receive.”
Jackson retired from the game the first time in 2016, after a series of injuries including around 50 surgeries across her career.
But she always intended to keep making a commitment to the sport she loves.
“Where I put my time and energy is now crucial. I want to get involved in the political side of sport rather than the media and I need to learn from the people who have been there before,” she said at the time.
Jackson became Head of Women’s Basketball at Basketball Australia and as Managing Director of the Empowered Athletes Transition Program in 2018.
In 2021 Basketball Australia announced a new strategic role for her which allowed her to focus on the organisations’ Women’s and Girls Strategy to deliver outcomes in gender equality in basketball.
She came out of retirement at 40 and picked up where she left off in being an inspiration to others, which led to another WNBL championship as well as helping the Opals secure bronze at the 2024 Paris Olympics after one of her kids told her she had to help out.
Whatever happens next for Jackson, the one certainty is that she won’t be lost to basketball.

Photo courtesy of NewsCorp.