When Nici Gilday first came to play in NBL1 West (SBL) at Mandurah, it kickstarted her professional career and she's always looking for new challenges, and helping grow Goldfields Giants with a female coach was a big driving factor.
Gilday had a terrific experience back in 2017 when she joined the Mandurah Magic. At that point she had no idea if she was going to be able to make a go out of playing professional basketball internationally.
However, she starred with the Magic to the point of having them within touching distance of a championship. She has only continued to thrive all over the world since as a dynamic guard capable of match winning performances.
The 32-year-old Californian also had another NBL1 West season at the Perry Lakes Hawks back in 2023, and she's also had stints playing in Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Puerto Rico, Germany and Bulgaria.
She now was excited by the new challenge in 2025 of making the move to Kalgoorlie to play with the Giants where she both liked the thought of playing under a female coach with Jaymi Worthington, and to help the culture continue to build at the competition's newest women's team.
Gilday has had an impressive start as well with 22.8 points, 7.8 assists and 5.7 rebounds in her six games with the Giants winning two of those before she was unfortunately sidelined with suspension for last week's road double against the Willetton Tigers and Cockburn Cougars.
Importance of female coaches
When Gilday arrived at Mandurah back in 2017, she was coming off a forgettable first stop internationally in Romania. There's every chance if it turned work out at the Magic, that her career might never have taken off.
However, that season in Mandurah was outstanding and now almost a decade later she continues to be one of the most sought after guards around the world.
While she did enjoy her time playing under Randy Miegel at the Magic and Craig Mansfield at the Hawks, what Gilday hasn’t had the chance to experience much of throughout her career around the world is to play under women's coaches.
There were a lot of things that excited her about the prospect of playing with the Giants in 2025, but none more so than the chance to have Jaymi Worthington as her coach.
"It's important for sure and definitely when I'm looking at teams to play for, having a female coach is something that is high up on my list of things to think about," Gilday said.
"Obviously then speaking directly to Jaymi before signing, it didn't take long for me to decide that I would really want to play for her.
"But in the bigger picture, I definitely want to see more women in the coaching space and not just Australia, but it's across all the league that I've played in that are male dominant.
"So it's intriguing to me and exciting to have the chance to come to the Giants and have Jaymi as my coach, so that was a huge plus to me.
"But not just because she is a woman, she's just a really good coach and is very positive, uplifting and to me personally, has shown that she believes in me and that we can collaborate well together.
"She creates such a positive environment for all of the girls and wants to put people in positions to be successful, and I feel like she's been great and I feel blessed to have a coach who is so positive and supportive."
How the Giants ended up as new home
Since Gilday last played in the NBL1 West at Perry Lakes in 2023, she had a season in Bulgaria with Bero Stara Zagora over 2023/24 and then last year played in Puerto Rico with Atenienses de Manati.
Having spent much of the previous seven years going from season to season, and going close to playing all-year round, Gilday did enjoy some time back home in San Jose before deciding what was next.
Then when the opportunity came to move to Kalgoorlie and to play with the Giants, for a whole host of reasons it was an opportunity too good to pass up.
"I was wanting to play a summer season this year and the season I had finished in Puerto Rico was pretty short, and I enjoy playing there, but because of the timing it can be hard to back-to-back from season to season," Gilday said.
"But because I had a bit of a break from the Puerto Rico season, I wanted to do a summer season somewhere and when my agent mentioned that an opportunity might present in Kalgoorlie, and I immediately knew he was talking about NBL1 West.
"I had a chat after that to Jaymi and she was really lovely, and I was excited to hear what they were trying to build here. I know they've invested a lot in this beautiful new stadium and the women's team is still relatively new to the competition.
"They're trying to grow the basketball and I was excited to be part of that, and I always wanted to come back to play in Australia too.
"I wanted to help build up the culture here at the Giants, it sounded intriguing to me and it's a unique challenge in a way because they are still establishing as a women's program.
"Everything they were saying sounded exciting and interesting, and it's cool to be part of building something from almost the ground up."
Settling into life in Kalgoorlie
While Gilday is enjoying the chance to be an experienced leader on a developing basketball group at the Giants, living in Kalgoorlie is also a different experience.
She had visited once briefly when playing a road game with the Hawks back in 2023, but aside from that she didn’t know much about the Goldfields city although she did get the feeling it would be somewhere she'd enjoy living.
That's exactly her experience so far a few months into it and while she does like the town, it's all about the people in the community that is standing out to her.
"I really enjoy Kalgoorlie. It has the small town vibe and I think it suits me," Gilday said.
"I enjoy that and I know a lot of people feel like they might prefer to be in a bigger city where there's more things to do, but I always think it's what you make it and it's all about the people.
"Everyone here has been extremely welcoming and the teammates and girls have all been great, and so has everyone at the club. I think we have really good, fun and positive group so to me it's a cool experience to be living and playing out here.
"It's not quite a tourist spot that I probably would ever visit if it wasn’t playing basketball that brought me here because I can't imagine just visiting a mining town in the middle of Australia for a vacation.
"So it's cool to be able to experience living here now and being part the community, and I really like everything about the town and a lot of that is because of the people here."
Trying to establish culture with Giants
When Gilday first spoke with coach Worthington about the potential of her coming to play at the Giants, both women knew full well what she could provide as a dynamic guard on the floor.
But what the conversation quickly turned to was what Worthington is trying to build culture wise at what is still a new women's program at the Goldfields. Gilday quickly knew she wanted to be on board with that.
"I'm excited and I feel like it's a process, and it's something that is going to take time," Gilday said.
"I think that the main thing that I'm excited about is the positive energy that the girls hopefully feel which brings that excitement because they can be proud of being part of what we're trying to build.
"It takes time for sure and we're going to continue to have that learning curve, but I feel like people are invested in that and hopefully excited by what we are trying to do.
"Slowly by surely, week by week we are continuing to get better, and to establish the culture of doing all the extra things of what it takes to win and be successful at a high level.
"That's things like getting up extra shots after practice, having extra work outs, spending time in the weight room, watching film and all of the things that it takes to be competitive in this league that only continues to get stronger.
"The girls are hard working and willing to learn, and put in the time it takes so when you have that right mentality then that's something you can build the foundations around.
"The sky's the limit when you create that right environment, and that all starts with our coach Jaymi, and it will take time but we're heading in the right direction."
Travelling world as a professional
Each time that Gilday does come back to play in Western Australia it gives her the chance to reflect on what a pivotal stop that was for her at the Magic back in 2017.
It really was a make or break moment for her professional career, but she'll always be thankful to coach Randy Miegel for the faith he placed in her to be the point guard on that team that went heartbreakingly close to a championship.
At that point Gilday had no idea what would lay ahead, but really it was the starting off point for everything she has achieved in her playing career since.
"It's a bit surreal in a way and I think especially coming here for a third time, it always feels like I've come full circle in a way," Gilday said.
"When I did come to Mandurah, really it was my first proper season overseas even though I had short stint in Romania. That was my first real experience and I was wide eyed, young and just happy to be there, and it was an awesome experience.
"That really set me up for the rest of my career because I did have such a positive experience and we went so close to winning the championship. Now being here with all this experience around the world behind me, looking back I had no idea that I would still even be playing at this point.
"I just really enjoy playing basketball and because I love the game, and I never went into it with any expectations, and I'm still enjoying myself all these years later and trying to make the most of every experience in the moment.
"When I look back on it and I've been doing this for almost a decade and I just feel lucky that I've been able to do it, and travel the world and meet so many people and have a lot of positive experiences."
Life after basketball
Gilday is still only 32 years of age, her body is holding up well and she is still loving playing basketball as much as ever.
When you consider her former Mandurah teammate Casey Mihovilovich is still going strong 10 years her senior too, then Gilday doesn’t need to think about her post-playing future just yet but she would like it to still revolve around basketball.
"I don't have a timeline for when I might stop playing but I can't see that in my immediate future," Gilday said.
"For now my body feels good, I'm still enjoying it and loving the lifestyle of getting to travel and be in different parts of the world. In terms of what I want to do when I'm done playing, it's something that I do think about but I don’t really having any clear plans in place.
"I just hope I'm able to have a smooth transition into whatever it is, but I would like to stay close to basketball if possible given it's what I know best. That might be coaching in some capacity or something close to the operational side of a team or something like that.
"I'm pretty open and I do have a business degree from college, but I don't see myself going that route and would like to continue working in basketball if that ends up being possible."