Stacey Marinkovich will celebrate her 100th game as West Coast Fever Coach in Round 12 in a journey with the club that has come full circle.
Over the past two decades, Stacey has been involved as a player, captain and coach, leading West Coast Fever to two Grand Finals in the most successful period in club history.
Her outstanding leadership saw her appointed last year as Origin Australian Diamonds head coach, which will see her depart Fever at the end of the season to take up the national role full-time.
This will conclude an incredible contribution to netball in Western Australia, including eight seasons as a Perth Orioles and West Coast Fever player, three of those as captain, and a coaching career that has spanned almost a decade.
After playing her 100th national level game in 2008, Stacey announced her retirement at the end of 2009. She began her elite coaching career in 2012 as an assistant coach at West Coast Fever and head coach of Western Sting in the Australian Netball League.
She was appointed head coach of Fever for the 2015 season and guided the club to third place in the Australian Conference, before leading them to grand final appearances in 2018 and 2020. Alongside this impressive list of achievements, Stacey has also become mum to 18-month-old son Matthew, who is a favourite among the Fever playing group and has further strengthened the family culture at the club.
It is fitting that Stacey returns to her original home state for this coaching milestone to lead Fever in front of family and friends against the Queensland Firebirds, which was coincidentally the opponent in Stacey’s first game as Fever coach and the team she made her debut for as a player 21 years ago.
West Coast Fever play Queensland Firebirds at Nissan Arena, Brisbane at 4.30pm WST tomorrow night, Tuesday July 27. The game will be broadcast live on Telstra TV and the Netball Live App.
