Dreams do come true as Indio native Kamille Diaz to play professional women's basketball
Shad Powers
On Thursday night, Indio native Kamille Diaz was on the Xavier Prep sideline as an assistant coach for the girls' basketball team. The next time she's on the sideline it will be as a professional basketball player.
Diaz, a 22-year-old hoops stud, who graduated from Cal Baptist last year leaves Monday to head to Spain where she will join the CB Igualada professional basketball team. She'll live in and play for the city of Igualada which is about 45 minutes northwest of Barcelona.
Soon she'll be in a gym with a bunch of professional women's basketball players. She won't be watching them. She'll be one of them.
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"It's honestly surreal, a dream come true," said Diaz, a 5-foot-6, 130-pound guard. "It all happened in the last couple months and on Christmas day I woke up to a ticket to Barcelona. That's when it was real. It hasn't really hit me yet, but I'm excited and nervous and sad to leave my family and all of the above. It's amazing."
Let's back up a bit and retrace how Diaz got from being a young girl in Indio dreaming of basketball stardom to the point where a professional club team in Europe sent her a ticket to Barcelona which arrived on Dec. 25 to come join them.
Diaz was born and raised in Indio and went to Indio High School for two years before transferring to J.W. North in Riverside for her final two years of high school hoops. She was then courted by Cal Baptist where she attended in the fall of 2012.
As a sophomore, she helped lead the Cal Baptist to the NCAA Championship game, and the team made it all the way to the final four during her senior season in 2017. As a senior, Diaz averaged 14.5 points, 6.5 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game. She led the team in assists all four years she was there and was the conference's freshman of the year in 2012-13. She left Cal Baptist as the school's all-time career assist leader (688) and fourth leading scorer (1,926).
"I loved every minute of my college years, but they really flew by," Diaz said. "I came in with a bunch of freshman and we kinda didn't know what we were up against at first, but then we got it figured out as sophomores and then made the final four again as seniors. It was a great group of girls."
After graduating in 2017 and without a basketball future on the immediate horizon -- Diaz is good, but not WNBA good -- she returned to the desert.
Diaz lives near Shadow Hills High School, so when she was in town she would hit up Thaddis Bosley who was the Shadow Hills girls' basketball coach at the time, asking him if she could shoot around in the gym or use the weight room. He had no problem with that. When Bosley became the head coach at Xavier Prep this school year, he allowed Diaz to join the team as an assistant coach.
"I graduated from college and I didn't really know what to do," said Diaz, who also worked at Stater Brothers to earn some extra cash. "I wasn't playing basketball and I wanted to be involved in basketball and he gave me the opportunity to help out with the girls, and I jumped at it."
Diaz's college coaches had thrown around the idea of her possibly playing overseas. Just like in men's basketball, there are plenty of professional basketball opportunities in Europe and Asia and Australia for women. She finally decided to take their advice and sent some e-mails to certain pro clubs that she learned were looking to add players.
In November she received a hit from CB Igualada, a club that has been around since 1980 and has several men's teams and women's teams. After a few back-and-forths, Diaz agreed and it became clear that this was going to happen.
"Over here in the states it's just the WNBA to play pro and get paid," Diaz said. "But overseas in Europe, Australia, wherever there are more opportunities to play. You don't start out making big bucks like Diana Taurasi, but you can work your way up and hope for the best."
So on Monday, Diaz, who has never been to Spain and doesn't speak Spanish, leaves for Igualada and will live with a family there. The family has two girls close to Diaz's age and they've been texting back and forth. She'll live there from January to May.
"As far as other countries, I've only ever been to Taiwan and Mexico," Diaz said. "I don't speak Spanish, but they (the girls she'll be living with) speak English and they know everything about Barcelona and Spain so I won't be just going over the blind with no help. We've been texting and they're excited and it's making me excited that they're excited to have me."
And so the adventure of a lifetime will begin. She said her parents are sad to see her go, but they've already got a trip to Barcelona planned in April, so they "might be more excited about it than I am."
The CB Igualada club will be getting a player that describes herself as a point guard that can shoot pretty well and will do anything to make the team win. She brings energy. She brings leadership. She brings determination.
"I honestly have no idea how they play and stuff like that. I'm just excited to have the opportunity to play beyond college, that is just a dream come true to me," she said. "Anything can happen and I am an example of that. I'm 5-6, 130 pounds, I'm nowhere near big like some of the girls in the WNBA but hard work and dedication is what did it for me."