A year ago, Erin Bollmann was taking on what she called the hardest challenge of her life.
At 22 years old and just eight months removed from the last time she pulled on a basketball jersey for Southeast Missouri State, she was coaching girls basketball at her alma mater, Meadow Heights.
It was an endeavor that Bollmann relished, but there was something she just could not shake: an urge bubbling under her skin every time she broke the huddle and watched her players walk out on the court.
The kind of feeling that kept her up at night.
"I had a great opportunity at my alma mater, and I loved those girls so much, but I just wanted to go out there on the court with them," Bollmann says.
"I'd have dreams I'd get to sub in and play with them."
It was clear Bollmann intensely missed her playing days, and rather than ignore what her heart was trying to tell her, she embraced it. She began waking up at 6 a.m. every day to work out, shoot, do ball-handling drills in her garage and try to rediscover skills she hadn't touched in a year.
Her focus heightened as time went on, and in December her hard work paid off when she got an email from the Keilor Thunder.
On Jan. 25, Bollmann's dream will be real when the plane she's riding on touches down in Melbourne, Australia, and, 1,600 miles from home, she becomes a professional basketball player.
The road
Growing up in a place like Patton, Missouri, it's easy to keep dreams small. Or, shall we say, realistic. After all, the bright lights and big moments most dreamers conjure up are happening in places far removed from rural Southeast Missouri.
So Bollmann didn't start with visions of big-time basketball. She did, though, have one thing that drove her.
"When I was growing up, I don't think I ever dreamed of being a basketball player, I just dreamed that one day I'd beat my brother one on one on the court," Bollmann says. "I think that mentality pushed me to get better and better. I think one day my junior year I looked around and thought, 'Hey, I'm not that bad at this basketball thing.'"
Meadow Heights principal Mitch Nanney, who coached the Panthers girls basketball team the first three years of Bollmann's high school career, remembers the now 5-foot-11 forward when she came onto his radar as an eighth grader.
"When she got to us, I always say she should have worn the number 55 because she was about 5-5 and weighed about 55 pounds. All arms and legs," Nanney says. "I don't think she scored but three varsity points her freshman year."
But things began to change and Bollmann grew both mentally and physically. She began to embrace greater commitment to the sport, getting involved with AAU ball and playing for the Wolfpack under coach BJ Smith. For Meadow Heights, her opportunity to make an impact as a sophomore expanded when teammate and all-district forward Whitney Welker tore her anterior cruciate ligament.
From there, the ball was in Bollmann's court, as they say.
"Her junior year was remarkably different," Nanney says. "... She became more of a force."
That was when Bollmann began to consider college basketball as a serious option. By the time she wrapped up her senior season, she was the 2012 Southeast Missourian Girls Basketball Player of the Year and fielding college offers from Three Rivers Community College and Maryville, her mother's alma mater.
Bollmann believed junior college was the best way to keep her Division I hopes alive, so she landed in Poplar Bluff at Three Rivers for a stint that she parlayed, despite injury, into a chance to play at Southeast Missouri State. Her senior year, she led the Redhawks in rebounding and was the team's second-leading scorer as the program returned to the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament for the first time in seven years.
In hindsight, her final year was also critical as it marked coach Rekha Patterson's hiring. More than a year and a half after playing her final game under Patterson, it was Bollmann's former college coach who sent her a text message.
A friend of Patterson's plays in Australia, and his agent reached out to find out if the Southeast coach knew anyone who might fit the mold of a power forward or wing player. As a matter of fact, she did.
Spoiler alert: that player was Bollmann.
"I've been over to Australia and I've seen their teams play, so I was thinking somebody who can play anywhere on the floor and has the longest arms I think I've ever seen," Patterson says. "Maybe Brittney Griner is a little longer than that, but aside from that.
"You always want to think about your players and how you can help your players. Once you've played for me, you're always mine ... and I'm always going to want to help you however possible. I just felt like if she was interested, maybe it could work out."
Bollmann had decided early in the summer that she was definitely interested in pursuing a playing opportunity overseas. That led her to a summer combine in Seattle, the lead-up to which saw her focus on diversifying her offensive skill set, honing her ability to attack from the 3-point line and score in different ways.
Her experience at the combine was a good one, confirming her love for the game was as strong as ever, but reminding Bollmann that her fitness was not. She worked to get that up to speed, and even received playing offers -- offers she turned down.
"I got a couple calls from teams in Europe and it just didn't feel right," Bollman says. "I get this random text from Coach Patterson and she just says, 'Are you still wanting to play overseas?' and I said, 'Of course. I've been waiting for that question.'"
Bollmann underwent a 20-minute phone interview with the Thunder, a semi-pro club based in Keilor -- just outside Melbourne -- that plays in the Big V league in both men's, women's and youth competitions.
A handful of email correspondences later, Bollmann was signing an eight-month contract.
The next challenge
Bollmann knows that moving to a foreign country to be a professional basketball player after a year away from the game won't be easy -- she's never even stepped foot in Australia.
There are a lot of unknowns ahead, but that's OK with Bollmann, just as long as everyone stops telling her to watch out for the spiders.
"Erin has never been afraid to step outside the box," Nanney says. "She's always looked at opportunities to pursue whatever she could do to become a better player, coach or person. She's never been afraid to roll the dice and take a chance."
Here's what Bollmann knows about what's ahead.
Unaccompanied by any friends or family, Bollmann will step onto a plane on Jan. 24 in St. Louis and get off of it on Jan. 25 in Australia. She will arrive at the airport at the same time as another American player, about whom she knows next to nothing but with whom she will ride to an apartment they will share, with a car they will share.
"All I know is her name is Kalyn and she is a guard," Bollmann says.
She will have two practices a week with the Thunder. The rest of her practice and workout time will have to be self-organized.
She will also be contractually obligated to take on 600 volunteer hours, which may sound like a burden but is, in fact, a source of major excitement for Bollmann.
"One of the coolest things about signing this contract is I have to complete 600 hours of volunteer work. The bulk is coaching a junior team," Bollmann says. "So I'm about to go to Australia to play basketball and coach basketball, which are my two favorite things."
Beyond her eight-month contract, the future is anyone's guess. By Bollmann's own admission she's "flying by the seat of my pants," focusing on getting the most of her season with Keilor, which will wrap up in September, and then seeing where the experience leaves her.
If there is uncertainty, it's not apparent listening to Bollmann speak about the opportunity. Rather, the excitement is infectious. For those who know her, this is no surprise. She has long been a source of confidence and positive energy.
That remains evident as Bollmann talks about the way life has been swirling around her as of late.
Just last week, things got more surreal when she was surprised by a ceremony retiring her Meadow Heights jersey. In attendance after simply being told the Panthers were going to recognize her professional playing opportunity, she was caught by surprise when she saw her jersey being carried on to the court and heard the announcement.
"... It was like getting hit in the face with the best news," Bollmann says. "I couldn't imagine that I would work my way up and have such a great experience that I'm about to head to Australia and also get my jersey retired."
For the first two decades of her life, Bollmann never left Southeast Missouri to play a home basketball game. The Meadow Heights product says, however, that path runs counter to what she always imagined as a kid.
"I've always had that heart that wants to travel, so when I went to Three Rivers and Cape Girardeau, it was like I wasn't feeding at all that traveling bug inside me," Bollmann says. "So when I got that opportunity it was like, 'I've got to take it.' Even though it's going to be the biggest move of my life, I finally feel like I'm doing those things I want. I kind of feel excited but scared to death, but I know it's going to be one of the greatest things I'll ever do."
The dream has evolved, and every step along the way Bollmann has evolved with it. There was a time, after all, when the greatest thing she could imagine doing was beating her brother on the basketball court.
"I would go out every single day and play my brother one on one and he would beat me every single day. It would end with me throwing a ball at him and running away and crying," Bollmann says.
"I remember I beat him when I was 19. I didn't say anything. I just walked out of the gym with a giant smile on my face."
These days, she wears the same smile as she walks into the gym.
"I feel like it's a dream. I feel crazy blessed," Bollmann says. "I've never had so many things make me smile in just a couple months."