The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Tribune Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

WALTIEA Rolle has had a successful return to pro basketball this season, but the veteran centre still believes she has much room for growth to reach both her short term and long term goals.

Rolle, who has emerged as a leader for the Spanish club CAB Estepona Jardín, discussed the motivation behind her return with SUR in English.

Rolle was on an 18-month hiatus away from the game due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Yes, I missed it, I love basketball. I can still play a little more before saying goodbye.

“My agent told me about several teams, but it was difficult for me to find a team that could adapt to what I wanted. I ended up finding Malaga, which can adapt to me,” she said.

“Right now I don’t do anything other than train, rest... It’s a complicated time for me because in 2020 I didn’t play any basketball. My body needs to reset, to go back to how it was before. I need to be me again this season and after that I don’t know. I need to feel like I have my normal body again.

She recently posted 12 points, eight rebounds and a season high five blocked shots in a 79-59 win over Paterna on Sunday.

After playing sparingly in her first two appearances with the club earlier this month, Rolle posted 15 points, eight rebounds and three blocked shots in her team’s 82-70 loss to Celta Zorka. She followed with 14 points and 13 rebounds in her team’s 87-63 win over Advisoria Mataro Maresme.

A mother of two young daughters, Rolle said she was torn between a return to the court and a change in careers in order to spend more time with her family.

“When you are a mother, you have to live for your children and it is very complicated when you are a young mother because you do not know what to do. I don’t know how to explain it, but you want to experience more,” Rolle said.

“On the one hand [I thought of retiring], because I had been playing far away from my daughters for about seven years and I thought I should be with them and give up basketball, because I missed them. But, on the other hand, I wanted to feel good about myself, to feel like a player again.”

For her immediate future, Rolle said the plan is to remain in the LF Challenge and compete with Estepona for the next seven months. The 16 teams in the LF Challenge are competing for two places of promotion to the elite of Spanish women’s basketball.

“Perhaps when I feel like I am physically fit, I will explore other possibilities. Right now I’m recovering,” she said. “I dream of being a coach at an American university, in the NCAA and also continuing with my Foundation, in the Bahamas. I try to help girls develop, go to school and enjoy basketball so that one day they can perhaps play professionally. I focus on girls as there is already a lot of focus on boys.”

A 2013 graduate of North Carolina, Rolle owns two of the top 10 best shot-blocking seasons in school history. Her 89 blocks during the 2013 campaign stand are the sixth best of all-time and her 82 blocks in the 2011 season eighth in North Carolina history.

Rolle made Bahamian basketball history as the first Bahamian drafted into the WNBA when the Minnesota Lynx selected her with a third-round pick (36th overall) in the 2013 draft. She appeared in all three pre-season games with the team, averaging seven points, 4.3 rebounds, and one steal per game.

In six games with the Storm in 2014, Rolle averaged 3.2 points and 2.8 rebounds per game.

Her professional career has also included stops in Bulgaria, China, the Czech Republic and Turkey. She played with Nymburk, of the Czech Republic’s ZBL League, where she averaged 16.3 points and 10.4 rebounds in 31 games.

She followed with Haskovo 2012 in Bulgaria’s NBL league where she averaged 13.9 points and 12.3 rebounds per game.

Following a brief stint with the Xianjiang Magic Deer of the Chinese Women’s Basketball Association she spent four months in the Turkish second division with Edremit Belediyes Gurespor and averaged 15.3 points along with 9.6 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game.