Jessica Mary Ellen Foley (born 20 April 1983) is a retired Australian

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

er and Australian rules footballer. As a basketballer, Foley represented Australia at both junior and senior levels and played for

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, t ...

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

in the United States. As an Australian rules footballer, Foley played for the

Adelaide Football Club The Adelaide Crows (officially the Adelaide Football Club) are a professional Australian rules football team based in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1990. The Crows has fielded a men's team in the Australian Football League (AFL) sinc ...

in the

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league in February and March 2017 had eight teams; the league expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, ...

(AFLW), playing in an AFL Women's premiership in her first season.

Basketball career

Foley commenced playing in the

Women's National Basketball League The Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) is the pre-eminent professional women's basketball league in Australia. It is currently composed of eight teams. The league was founded in 1981 and is the women's counterpart to the National Ba ...

(WNBL) in 1999. Since then, Foley has played for the AIS (1999/00 to 2000/01) and

Adelaide Lightning The Adelaide Lightning is an Australian professional women's basketball team competing in the Women's National Basketball League ( WNBL). The club is based in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. The club was formed in 1993 and they play ...

(2006/07 to current). In season 2007/08, Foley was selected to the

WNBL All-Star Five The All-WNBL Team is an annual Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) honour bestowed on the best performing players in the league following every WNBL season. From 1988 to 2018–19, the honour was known as the All-Star Five. As of 2020, it is ...

. In 2011, Foley won the Halls Medal for the

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

player in the South Australian Women's competition. Between 2002 and 2006, Foley attended Duke University in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia a ...

and played for the Blue Devils. As a junior, Foley set a single season record with 68 three-pointers made. In the

2006 WNBA draft On November 16, 2005, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) held an expansion draft for the Chicago Sky. It was the first expansion draft since the 2000 season, when the WNBA welcomed the Miami Sol, Portland Fire, Indiana Fever, an ...

, Foley was selected in round 3 (pick 38 overall) by the

Indiana Fever The Indiana Fever are an American professional basketball team based in Indianapolis, playing in the Eastern Conference in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team was founded before the 2000 season began. The team is owned ...

, but did not play because of injury. In 2008, Foley was traded to the

Connecticut Sun The Connecticut Sun are an American professional basketball team based in Uncasville, Connecticut that competes in the Eastern Conference (WNBA), Eastern Conference of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The team was established ...

, but returned to Australia without playing a WNBA game. At official

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. Originally known as the (hence FIBA), in 1989 it dropped the word ''amateur'' from its nam ...

events, Foley played for Australia at the 2001 World Championship for Junior Women, the 2003 World Championship for Young Women and the 2009 FIBA Oceania Championship for Women, where she won a Gold medal.

Duke statistics

Source

AFLW career

Foley was drafted by

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

at pick no. 30 in the 2018 national draft. In March 2020, she retired to focus on her medical career. Following her retirement, Foley has been a ruck coach and team doctor at

Geelong Geelong ( ) ( Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the south eastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon ...

in 2021 and will join the club's AFLW coaching panel for the

2022 AFL Women's season The 2022 AFL Women's season was the sixth season of the AFL Women's competition, the highest-level senior women's Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season was the last to feature 14 clubs, ran from 7 January until 9 Apri ...

as an assistant coach with responsibility for the defence.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Foley, Jessica 1983 births Living people Adelaide Football Club (AFLW) players Adelaide Lightning players Australian expatriate basketball people in the United States Australian Institute of Sport basketball (WNBL) players Australian rules footballers from New South Wales Australian women's basketball players Duke Blue Devils women's basketball players Indiana Fever draft picks Small forwards Sportswomen from New South Wales

Basketball career

Duke statistics

AFLW career

See also

References

External links