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Eleni Valos (middle of photo) has found enduring friendships and fun with the Camberwell Dragons Big V Women's team. Photo: Craig Dingle, Melbourne Sports Photography.

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By JENNY DIXON

“Her energy was just so good off the bench. She just makes you feel like you’re bloody LeBron James walking out (on court)." – Anonymous Dragon.

Hands in ...

Down on the scoreboard in the finals ...

The whistle blows ...

The team walks back out onto the court ...

Five players get into their positions ...

Basketball’s high energy and competitive nature may be why you start out in our sport. But they're not the only reasons people stay.

Eleni Valos, a starting forward for Camberwell Dragons Big V Division 1 Women’s team, grew up in the Sydney suburb of Lane Cove. Sport was a constant in her life, and Eleni started out as a netball player before a couple of mates suggested she try basketball.

 “It was so much better,” she says.

Eleni started playing for the Norths Bears as a junior and stayed with the club all the way through to the senior ranks. “It took a while for us to actually be successful,” she remembers. “But it was just really fun."

Yes, basketball was fun, and there was something about sport that kept pulling Eleni back for more.

After studying health science at Sydney University and graduating with a Masters of Sports Management, she began carving out a career in sport. Eleni worked in the Sydney University sports department and volunteered to work on game days for Sydney’s WNBL team. “That was my first real taste of working in sport,” she says.

At 28, Eleni moved to Melbourne, where the opportunities to work in sport, she says, are "10 times more than in Sydney".

She made the move with her partner, Jack, landing in the middle of the COVID lockdown storm, and with an exciting job offer to join AFL club Carlton.

Because the lockdowns made it virtually impossible to connect with people in a new city, Eleni turned to local sport when the restrictions lifted. “I needed a basketball club to play at because I needed to make friends,” she says.

Basketball can be a haven for so many people – the place where you play the game as part of a team that rallies behind you, and a place to meet so many fantastic people.

Eleni’s coach in Sydney, former Sydney Kings player Tom Garlepp, suggested a Melbourne basketball association when she relocated. She played there for a season but moved on when one of her teammates said: “Come to Camberwell.”

The Dragons "really popped out of nowhere," she says. "It seemed like destiny, so we went to some tryouts ... we ended up going to Camberwell, and I’ve been at Camberwell for six seasons, I just keep going back. It’s really fun. I’ve made some really good friends.”

Two of those friends are former Dragons player Gemma Fyffe and current Dragon Lauren Moran, who played her 200^th Big V game last month. These are deep relationships that extend well beyond the court

Eleni and Jack (pictured below) announced their engagement last year and are an AFL sports power couple! Jack works in the analytics space at AFL club Collingwood.

Eleni has been working hard now for six years at Carlton, where her dual roles with the Blues “chopped and changed” quite a bit. A lot of what she did, she says, was supporting younger players in their transition phase into full-time AFL.

"It can be really full on, and basketball can be a bit of a release from work … because I'm just worried about playing. And having a bit of fun."

Eleni has recently taken on a huge new role as the head of Carlton's AFLW Program.

"I couldn’t be happier to be back in the AFLW space at Carlton," she says. "The competition and our club have grown significantly across the last few years and I’m really keen to move into this new role to help further develop the AFLW program."

Building a career while juggling a team commitment can be intense.

"There was a point probably at the end of last year where I had a chat with Mark (Dragons D1 Women’s coach Mark Jeffers) and I was like, ‘I just don't know if I want to keep playing, like my body's really sore' … It's a big commitment," she says.

When Eleni spoke to her colleagues at Carlton, she was shocked but “glad they sort of pushed me to keep playing because you just need something else (than work in your life). Otherwise, if you get too consumed with footy, it's just all too much." She doesn’t regret her decision to stay at Camberwell, saying: “I've got many good mates from it (and) It's such good fitness."

Eleni can still recall the days when she was just one of the kids that would run onto the court at Sydney Kings games and wipe the sweat off the floor while watching the action unfold around her. And those times when watching the game would become an up-close and personal experience!

“You've got players, they fall onto you because you're sitting right at the base of the ring,” she says. "The player is always like, ‘Are you OK?’ And I'm like, ‘You’re the professional athlete. Are you OK?’ I used to go to all those games when I was younger, Sydney Kings games. So, I've always loved basketball.”

Asked to share her advice with anyone playing basketball now, or looking to start, Eleni doesn’t hesitate. "Just always try to see the fun of it and not take yourself too seriously,” she says. “Just controlling what you (can) control and, again, if it's not going your way to just take a step back and just focus on the things that you can control. And also, just keep playing. Find friends and keep playing, enjoy it.”

Eleni brings passion and joy to the Camberwell Dragons and hers is one of the many stories in our back yard that deserves to be shared.

– Eleni Valos and the Dragons Division 1 Women’s team open their Big V playoff campaign on the road against Mildura on Saturday night (August 8).

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Jenny Dixon is a member of Camberwell Basketball's Communications team and our Big V Working Group. To contact Jenny, email [email protected]