
Basketball Queensland is pleased to announce the appointment of the coaching staff for the 2016 Under 18 Queensland State Teams.
U18 North Girls Head Coach: Jenny Froling
Jenny is a four-time WNBL champion and former Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder. This is her second time coaching the Under 18 North Girls team, and has previously served in the Assistant Coach role in 2014.
She has also served in Assistant Coach roles in professional and semi-professional basketball, for the Hobart Islanders WNBL team in 1992, and the Townsville Sunbirds in the Queensland State League. Her most recent positions have been with Townsville junior teams, taking out a number of local championships with the Blackstars basketball club.
U18 North Boys Head Coach: Brady Walmsley
This is Brady’s third year as Head Coach of the Queensland North Under 18 Boys Team, first taking on the role in 2014 following his stint as Assistant Coach of the 2013 Under 16 North Girls Team. He has also previously served the Under 16 Queensland North Girls Development Coach and Under 15 Queensland North Blue Chip Head Coach,in addition to Selector/Skills coach for the Victoria Metro Under 18 Men’s team, and the Assistant Coach for the Victoria Country Ivor Burge women’s team. Brady is also currently the Burdekin Basketball Junior Representative Development Coordinator, in addition to having coaching experience at Townsville Basketball, the McKinnon Cougars (Victoria) and the Melbourne Tigers junior associations.
U18 South Girls Head Coach: Janelle Bressow
Janelle takes the role of head coach of the Under 18 South Girls team, just weeks after a triumphant national championships title win as coach of the Under 16 South girls team. She is one of the most experienced Junior coaches in the State, and this year added the Under 16 girls gold medal to her 2012 and 2010 silver medals. Janelle has also been reinstated as Head Coach of the Australian Women’s Deaf team for a further 4 years. Her first year coaching the Australian Women’s Deaf team was in 2009 where she attended the Deaflympics in Taipei. She is heavily involved in Secondary Schools basketball and was a lead coach for the NITP until it changed focus. Janelle was named Basketball Australia’s Female Coach of the Year (Queensland) in 2006 and named Basketball Queensland’s Female Coach of the Year in 2014, 2008 and 2006.
U18 South Boys Head Coach: Ben Johnson
As Basketball Queensland’s State Performance Manager for Queensland South, Ben Johnson is this year also taking on the role as head coach of the South Under 18 Boys State Team. Originally from Wisconsin in the United States, Ben has extensive experience in coaching junior basketball athletes, as well as more than a decade of coaching in the US college system for the University of Wisconsin and Washington State University, in addition to numerous years playing semi-professional basketball in the US and Australia. Ben also currently coaches the Logan Thunder men’s QBL team.