Kia Nurse's mother Cathy recalls the story like it happened this morning.
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She would drop her daughter off at school in the morning, but the first thing the would-be basketball star would do wasn't rush off to see her friends on the playground.
"I would just go and line up where the line was going to start, because I knew when the bell rang I had to be first," Nurse said.
It takes a fraction of a second to work out this Canberra Capitals superstar is a winner. It's all the WNBL's newly-crowned most valuable player knows.
The Canadian star polled 94 votes, six clear of second-placed Brianna Turner to become the first import to claim the Suzy Batkovic Medal.
But one quickly gets the sense she would trade it in for another title in what looms as her final season down under. The next step on that journey comes in a semi-final series opener against the Melbourne Boomers at the AIS Arena on Sunday.
"The end goal for us this season was to go and get another one," Nurse said.
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"All season long, everyone has been saying 'you're defending champions'. We're not defending anything, we have the trophy in our trophy case and they can't take it back from last year.
"We're going out to get a whole new one with a whole new team. That's the best part about it, it's not the exact same team from last year.
"But the team we have this year has done so many incredible things along the way. We've shown resilience and toughness, and that's going to help push us forward in this finals run."
Nurse became the Capitals' second league MVP in as many seasons after Kelsey Griffin claimed the award in a canter last summer.
So it was fitting Griffin was the one to announce Nurse had claimed the top gong on Friday morning.
She did so with little fanfare, standing outside an AIS gym, given the WNBL will not host an awards night this season.
The move has drawn the ire of leading players including Opals star Jenna O'Hea and her predecessors on social media, but the WNBL is planning to celebrate Nurse at game one of the semi-final series.
Even so, Griffin did her best to capture Nurse's character in a speech that started with a simple concession.
Griffin didn't buy into all the hype when Capitals coach Paul Goriss recruited Nurse to the club last season, simply because so many imports see Australia as "a great vacation destination".
"I thought to myself 'I'll believe it when I see it'. I'll be the first to say you have proven Goz right," Griffin said.
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"When people talk about how impressed they are with you being a WNBA All-Star, a Jordan brand ambassador and leading team Canada to another Olympic berth, I say those are great accomplishments but that isn't what impresses me about you.
"What impresses me about you is your want to win. It's your desire to take and make the big shots, and it's not because you want the recognition, it's because it's what your team needs of you.
"Not everyone can do that, but Kia Nurse, you do it over and over again."
That's because she is a perfectionist, her own harshest critic in a family filled with talent.
"My family, what they've done, the success they've had, all the footsteps they've decided to leave me as the youngest, I'm always trying to fill those," Nurse said.
"For me, it's just been a matter of wanting to do whatever it is to make them proud. My parents always said 'you can play whatever sport you want, we don't care'.
"I know we weren't the richest family in the world, but what they sacrificed for me to be able to play at every single level I wanted to, [this award] is a thank you to my family and my parents especially."
WNBL SEMI-FINALS
Semi-final series two (all times in AEDT)
Sunday, February 16: Game one - Canberra Capitals v Melbourne Boomers at AIS Arena, 5.30pm.
Sunday, February 23: Game two - Melbourne Boomers v Canberra Capitals at State Basketball Centre, 6pm.
Game three date to be confirmed if necessary.