Jude Gordon

Growing up in British Columbia, Canada, Jude Gordon first showed her playing potential, when at the age of twelve, she played in her first open senior team and quickly established herself in high school representative teams and later open women’s basketball leagues in Calgary, Alberta.

After arriving in Queensland in 1967, Jude joined Northwest Districts (NWD) club where she remained for all her Queensland club playing career, representing Metropolitan Zone at eight Queensland state senior women’s championships.

In 1977 Basketball Queensland initiated the concept of Queensland Basketball All-Star Five teams for men and women with the inaugural women’s team including Jude Gordon as one of the guards.

Between 1968 and 1977, Jude Gordon represented Queensland at seven senior women’s Australian championships. This is the equal second-most senior Australian championships played by any female player and equal third-most senior Australian championships played by any Queensland player. Jude was Queensland captain in 1975 and she was manager of the 1972 Queensland women’s team.

As with many sports in Queensland, there are a multiplicity of roles that members of the sporting organisations adopt to ensure that the sport survives. Jude Gordon’s contribution is testimony to this, with administrative responsibilities including three years as a member of the NWD executive committee and three years as a club selector, player commitments at club, zone and State levels, as well as channelling her energies to Queensland basketball administration duties within the Queensland Women’s Amateur Basketball Association (QWABA).

In 1972, Jude was elected to the executive of the Queensland Amateur Basketball Association, was Assistant Secretary in 1974 and became Vice-President in Charge of Women’s Affairs in February 1975. This role was expanded due to Jude’s insight and passion to champion the needs of women in basketball, develop programs to retain senior women players, establish dialogue around international competition and improve standards of competition for women.

Notwithstanding her vision and her administrative contributions to basketball in Queensland during the years before the advent of the Women’s National Basketball League, Jude Gordon’s principal basketball contributions were as a player.

Jude Gordon was an incredibly talented and tenacious player, inspirational as a leader through her captaincy roles, contributing to many successes at club and state levels, and as such is a most worthy inductee into the Queensland Basketball Hall of Fame.