Erin Phillips

Erin Phillips

Erin Victoria Phillips is an Australian former professional basketball player and an Australian rules footballer for Adelaide. She played nine seasons in the Women’s National Basketball Association for five different teams and is a two-time WNBA champion. She also represented Australia on the women’s national basketball team, winning a gold medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women. With the launch of the AFLW in 2017, Phillips began her football career at age 31. She quickly emerged as the league’s best player and one of its biggest stars. Phillips plays as a midfielder and is also one of the leading goal scorers in the competition.

About Erin Phillips in brief

Summary Erin PhillipsErin Victoria Phillips is an Australian former professional basketball player and an Australian rules footballer for Adelaide. She played nine seasons in the Women’s National Basketball Association for five different teams and is a two-time WNBA champion. She also represented Australia on the women’s national basketball team, winning a gold medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women and serving as a co-vice captain at the 2016 Summer Olympics. With the launch of the AFLW in 2017, Phillips began her football career at age 31. She quickly emerged as the league’s best player and one of its biggest stars. Phillips plays as a midfielder and is also one of the leading goal scorers in the competition. Her father Greg played professional Australian rules football for Port Adelaide, where he won eight premierships and earned an induction into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. Phillips has said she wanted to be an AFL footballer since she could walk and talk, and to be exactly like her father. She was born on 19 May 1985 in the Carlton suburb of Melbourne to Julie and Greg Phillips. She began playing basketball at the age of 13, switching to basketball due to the lack of opportunities for female footballers at the time. She made her professional basketball debut with the Adelaide Lightning in 2002. Phillips was also a member of the South Australia under-16 and under-18 national championships. She won the Bob Staunton Award as most outstanding player in the under-20 tournament in 2004, where she won the Norma Connolly Trophy as the outstanding player of the tournament.

In 2011, she was named the best player on the Adelaide Bearcats team. In 2012, she won her first WNBA title with the Indiana Fever, and two years later with the Phoenix Mercury. In 2013, she became an assistant coach for the Dallas Wings, the last team she played for in the league. She has also played four seasons in AFL Women’s competition, in which she is a 2× AFLW premiership player and two- time league best and fairest. Phillips’s father was a professional Australian Rules football defender who played most of his career with the Port Adelaide Football Club in the South Australian National Football League. He also competed in the Victorian Football League, which was later renamed as the modern Australian Football League, as aMember of the Collingwood Football Club. He was named to the club’s all-time Greatest Team in 2000. Phillips had the opportunity to train with Port Adelaide on occasion while growing up. She said she was as good a 14-year old as I’ve ever seen play football as she was ever seen by her father, John Cahill, one of her father’s coaches at Port Adelaide. As a junior, Phillips played for the West Australian Bearcats, a junior team, around this time for the Australian national team, and won the under 16 and under18 Australian national championships, winning the under16 championship team in 1999. She is also a former member of South Australia’s Women’s Basketball League.