A career in sport has always been on the cards for Lucas Impey, the hard decision is just which one.
Coming from an elite basketball pedigree with his mother Jodi playing more than 300 Big V games and his father Christian playing high school basketball in America and has coached for more than 20 years, Impey was aways going to step on the basketball court.
“They pushed me really hard to play basketball but they were always open to me playing two sports,” he said.
“They back me 100 per cent, and that’s something I really appreciate, having them in my corner.”
Impey was on track to follow in their footsteps, having made every state team from under-16s to under-20s. However, a call from the Western Jets in the Coates Talent League asking him to attend a pre-season training threw a spanner into the works.
“I said, yeah why not? I’d put footy on the back burner for four years or so, I missed it,” he said.
“I came down for a run and I really loved it, ended up doing the pre-season and starting the season.
“I haven’t looked back since, I’ve played a couple of games of basketball but footy’s been the priority this year.
“I found a new love for footy and now that I’ve been away from basketball every time I’ve got to come back, I’ve really enjoyed it.
“Honestly, I think I really needed to change, it’s been good, it’s been an eye opener.”
While a decision between the two sports will have to be made in the future, Impey is in no rush to disturb what he has going at the moment.
Impey has been a ruck sensation since joining the Jets program, averaging 24 hit outs from his seven outings. He said a lot of credit has to go to his coaches who have instilled their confidence in the raw talent.
“They’ve backed me 100 per cent that I’m going to win every contest and it just drives me to want to play really well every game,” he said.
“My local coaches down at Darley have definitely helped me a lot, they’ve given me a lot of confidence to go out there and just try new things.
“They don’t care if I make mistakes, so it’s really the coaches pushing me to be better.”
Although, the transition into footy wasn’t as easy as Impey has made it seem with doubts creeping in at the start of pre-season.
“I was just really rusty, and I thought I didn’t really fit in,” he said.
“Once I kept going back to footy and everyone started to kind of get to know me a little bit, there were no doubts whatsoever that I made a good decision.”
With a decision on his sporting career still pending, Impey isn’t looking too far ahead in terms of career aspirations.
“Whichever sport I do pick, I’m going to try and go as far as I can.”
