She first started playing basketball in Horsham at the Maydale Pavilion when she was 13. 

Since then, the association was formed on McPherson Street and she has been heavily involved in all facets of the association – from coaching to refereeing and serving on the committee.

Pearce said while some of those original players from the Maydale days had left, she just “stuck around”. 

“After the others dropped off, I just decided to stay and then we changed and became an association,” she said. 

One of her passions is teaching others and she currently coaches her grandson, Connor, in an under-14s side. 

“I’ve coached and stopped for a while but have taken it back up again now with a bunch of boys,” she said.

“Some children don’t like their parents or grandparents coaching them, but it doesn’t faze Connor and he just goes along with the flow.”

Pearce has also mentored players who have gone onto play in the National Basketball League. 

“I’ve watched players  grow, thrive and become excellent players,” she said.

“Mitch Creek, Aaron Bruce, Shaun Bruce – and there are a few others who have come and gone through here. To sit in the stands and watch the seniors on a Saturday night, I feel like a mother. It’s fantastic to watch them play.”

In 2002, the association awarded Pearce with a life membership, something she never expected. 

“Normally I know what’s going on in the stadium, but that was really slyly done,” she said. “It was a good pat on the back for doing something right in the stadium for something that you love.”

Throughout summer Pearce has been travelling the two-and-a-half hours from Portland, where she has been holidaying, to Horsham on weekends when the senior sides have been playing. 

“I come down early in the morning and have the air conditioner going, I put all the drinks in the fridge and have everything organised,” she said. 

Pearce is showing no signs of stepping away from basketball, and said there is something unique about basketball in Horsham.

“I’ve been involved with a lot of other towns and their basketball and we just seem to stick it,” she said. “People might come and go, but there’s maybe a half a dozen of us that just stay here and we just stick together. All the new ones circulate around us and we get things down, that’s how I see it anyway.

“I have a lot of basketball to see yet.”