Use your talent – former netball star Liezel Garbers 

Speedy, tactical, skilful, but most importantly, accurate. This is how the former TransNamib Netball Club and Namibian national team goal-attack Liezel Garbers (previously Viljoen), describes her netball style.

Garbers grew up at Gobabis where she started playing netball in Grade 4 at Ben van der Walt Primary School to start a netball career that later led her to the pre-independence South West Africa Schools team, and eventually the University of the Free State team.

“I moved back from Bloemfontein after university and joined TransNamib while teaching at Mariental. I had to drive to Windhoek twice a week for team practice. I’ve always played as a goal-attack, which has always been my favourite position,” she says.

“My tactics and play were on point. I also had very good coaches during my years in South Africa. But I just had this inborn talent under the hoop. I was a natural shooter because I was very accurate. It didn’t take long for the Namibian national selectors to notice me.”

The TransNamib star was rewarded with a call-up for the national team trials for the 1995 Netball World Cup in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

She was eventually selected for the final squad that also included other shooters, like Marga Liebenberg and Kapena Tjihero.

Garbers was one of the few Namibian players who enjoyed a tournament which saw Namibia winning three consecutive matches to head group 4 at one stage in the consolation competition.

She was singled out as the star against Scotland in their third match of the tournament because of her exceptional shooting.

The former TransNamib star was Namibia’s top scorer at the ninth edition of the netball competition.

“It was my first trip overseas. It was a dream come true and everything in between. We all had stage fright, my teammates and I. The feeling of playing indoors before a crowd was overwhelming – especially against New Zealand,” she says.

“The competition was very tough because we were playing against the best nations in the world. We fell out of the proper event but competed in the loser’s section in which we won all our group matches.”

Namibia were pulled from group 4 of the loser’s section and the Desert Jewels played with newly-found composure to emerge as the winners of the group thanks to a 49-40 win over Scotland.

They then qualified for 16th place play-offs against Papua New-Guinea, which they lost.

Garbers was also included in the Carol Garoes-coached national team that represented Namibia in Zone Six netball in Zimbabwe, which also attracted nations like Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa and Zambia.

WORK, FAMILY

Garbers has four daughters, and the former school teacher has since assumed the role of a housewife.

“I got married to Deon Garbers in 1996 and resigned from my teaching job to raise our children. The nature of my husband’s work, who is a metallurgist, requires him to travel a lot. I’ve also been a netball coach in the meantime,” she says.

Garbers mentions her mom as the person with the biggest influence on her netball career.

“My mother was my coach in high school, and she always encouraged and inspired me to be better every day. As for my toughest opponent, I don’t need to look any further than my world cup experience, because playing New Zealand was out of this world,” she says.

Her mother, Rita Viljoen, was a prominent figure in schools’ netball.

Garbers, who attributes her excellent performance to hard training, has been coaching at Windhoek Gymnasium for the past 17 years.

She has also been the organiser and chairperson of the Capricorn Schools Netball Super League for the past 11 years, where she has been praised for her exceptional organisational and leadership skills.

“This is definitely the way I have imagined my life after my netball playing career. To have a beautiful family built on strong family values and a comfortable life. I must admit I miss the excitement before matches tremendously,” she says.

“The other thing I enjoy is that I’m still able to see my former teammates on a regular basis. My daughters are playing club netball and that ensures that I see my former TransNamib and national team teammates at the netball courts.”

The former player-turned-coach’s advice to young players is to dream big.

“Never stress, and joke at every opportunity. That will relax your mood a little bit,” she says.

“But, most importantly, always respect your coach, respect your teammates and, most importantly, be thankful for your God-given talent and use it to the best of your ability.”

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