(Photo: FIBA)

Each morning, with pitch darkness as her reality and the pending dawn still nothing more than a rumour, one of the most accomplished players in the world of women’s basketball awakens to the sound of an alarm clock in her Mission home.

For over a decade, Teresa Gabriele has been playing point guard for Canada’s senior women’s national team, helping lead her country to the 2000 Olympics and a pair of World Championships. And while defining the playmaking and leadership skills of her position, she has brought the kind of daily dedication and work ethic that fellow countryman and point guard Steve Nash would applaud.

But does the alarm clock really have to ring at 3:45 a.m.?

Hey, when you work in the family bread business because amateur sports funding alone can’t make ends meet, you learn to rise each day with the dough.

And in Gabriele’s case, that has meant hitting a series of appointed rounds at Abbotsford retail outlets like Costco, Wal-Mart and Thrifty’s, meeting with the delivery trucks and stocking the shelves with the latest in whole grain, rye and raison while most everyone else is still asleep.

“You have to be very disciplined, very scheduled and very committed and you have to find other ways to motivate yourself,” says Gabriele, 33, who works through the morning, trains until the early afternoon, then returns to work to re-stock shelves, before a second workout session ends her day.

To read the entire article by Howard Tsumura from The Province, press here.

To learn more about the 2012 Jack Donohue International Classic, press here.

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