KEY POINTS:
Life is about to undergo a significant shift for Jamaican goal-keep Nicole Aiken after this week's world championships.
Beaumont, Texas, 130km from Houston, is a world removed from Auckland - and even further from Clarendon, Jamaica - but it will be home for Aiken for the next few years courtesy of a full scholarship to play basketball for Lamar University.
Her teammates there include a Latvian, a Spaniard, a Lebanese and a New Zealander - 1.95m centre Natasha Ward from Cambridge.
Aiken is not the first netballer from the Caribbean to find a door opening in basketball.
She finds similarities between the two sports, and can see each helping the other. A netball goal-keep and a basketball centre are both in the business of banging bodies.
Neither are positions for the faint-hearted.
"I'm learning to take basketball one game at a time. It's all new to me. I played a little basketball back home but US basketball is way different," the amiable Aiken said yesterday.
"I am a defender and you've got to be tough and strong. So for me, basketball gives me that opportunity to develop my aggression. You have to be particularly strong at centre.
"Both games carry some basic skills like passing, but going for balls off the basket, clashing under the boards, I can take that over [to basketball] because it's basically going up strong for a rebound."
Aiken was approached by Lamar people while still finishing her degree at GC Foster College in St Catherine, about 30km from the capital, Kingston. It is the only sports college in the Caribbean and past alumni include Aiken's current teammates Simone Forbes and Sasher-Gaye Henry, who has just completed her time there.
At Lamar, Aiken will pursue a degree in kinesiology and physical education, the ultimate aim being teaching.
"That's my heart and soul. That's where I see myself, in the classroom, in five years from now," she said.
And what happens when she gets a knock on the door from a Women's NBA scout?
"Oh my God," she chortled, all shock-horror.
"I don't want to think about it now. It would be fun and exciting, but I do have other things going."
Aiken, 22 and 1.90m tall, is a country girl, educated at Clarendon College - "the best high school in Jamaica" she laughed - about 90 minutes drive from Kingston, and very different from the crime-ridden capital.
A smart woman, who speaks with pride of her long-limbed younger sister Romelda, who turns 19 next Monday, and occupies the other end of the court as a gifted goal-shoot.
"It's wonderful, it's a blessing," she said of having her kid sister in the team. "Good things happen to good people. She's always there for me and I am for her."
Aiken talks of the importance of the gospels, fondly remembers singing in her school choir, and missing her family during her years in Texas.
"It will be hard but it will be a great opportunity for me to further my studies so that whenever I finish my sporting career, I will be able to get a good job."
Aiken is also not above poking a bit of fun too. In a recent interview for Lamar, she identified New Zealand as her favourite place to visit and play.
Really?
"Okay. England is just not my world and Australia, I won't even go there," she said. "But New Zealand people remind me of people back home.
"They'll call out 'hi, you're from Jamaica, you here for the worlds? Good luck', even though they have their own team here. They're so friendly."
Having brushed aside Samoa in yesterday's quarter-final, Jamaica now face the Silver Ferns in tonight's semifinals.
Aiken likes the way her team have been building - "we're doing pretty well and hoping we can continue on the path we're going. But there's still room for cleaning up some things".
Beating the Silver Ferns would signal a massive cleanup operation has taken place. And it wouldn't be a bad line for Aiken to stick on her CV before embarking on a new sporting career.
