Tia and Tor Freeman: Family, Basketball, and Everything in Between

At TeamSportz, we love getting the opportunity to speak to players and coaches of all different backgrounds, experiences, and levels, to get the conversation going about their love for the game, their highs and lows, and tips to share with others in the sport community.

Last week we had such a fun interview with Tia Freeman, basketball player for Essex Rebels in the WBBL, and her brother Tor Freeman, basketball coach for St Albans Wolves girls in the junior national league.  

How it all started

The two grew up in West Sussex, near Worthing, which historically speaking is a huge basketball town. Tor started playing basketball at school when he was younger. It was his PE teacher that got him into it initially, and then a couple of years later Tia got into it as well and would play with Tor and their dad. At the time Tia was also playing hockey and would split her time between the two sports. Over time she started playing basketball and loving it more. It was then that the basketball journey really started for Tor and Tia. They both joined a local basketball team together, as they were young enough for guys and girls to play in the same league.

When asked if they were competitive with one another when they were younger, Tor said, “Yeah, Tia’s definitely more competitive than me. When we were younger it was alright because we were playing on the same team so we weren't competitive with each other. It’s more like you look out for each other. Especially because she was the only girl on a boy’s team, so I think me and my friends on the team were quite protective in that sense.”

Diving deeper into being the only girl on a boy’s team growing up, Tia shares her experience, “I enjoyed it to be fair. It was super fun. Obviously on the physical side of it I was only 14 years old so I’m like a scrawny little girl playing with a lot more bigger guys. But all of the boys were totally cool with it. They were super accepting and would normally guard me on my team. Sometimes we’d play at an away game and the guys on that team would definitely be like ‘I’m not sure how to guard a girl’. There were a couple other girls in the league which was nice and overall it was a super fun experience. That was the first team I played in and why I started to love basketball.”

Joking around a bit, we asked the two who is the better shooter. Tia jumped right in and laughed with, “Me, I was definitely the better shooter!” and Tor quickly responded, “I think Tia shot more but I don’t know if it was a better percentage.” They both couldn’t stop laughing and it’s clear the sibling love and banter is still very much there.

Dreams and aspirations

Tia oozes competitiveness and passion for basketball, which is what helped her get to the professional level she’s at today. We asked her if her dream was always to be a professional basketball player. She responded, “I always just enjoyed playing it for fun for sure, alongside hockey. Then I just got better as it went along. I ended up going to an academy for it, where I could do my A levels alongside it and I made my first national team at age 15-16. From that, I was like wow I guess this is something I could pursue.”

Tia loves being a basketball player and wants to run with it for as long as she can. When her time as a player is up, she has other plans to potentially think about. “I have my business background and I’m getting my Masters in economics right now. So I’ve got my Plan B to fall back on and pursue a job when I want to or need to.” She also shared she’s not quite sure coaching is really her thing and a path she probably wouldn’t go on. She continues, “I know Tor knew he wanted to coach much earlier. I’m just trying to play for as long as I can and just enjoy being a professional player. I feel like I really enjoy that aspect a lot more.”

Tor, on the other hand, doesn’t play much anymore because there’s no time for it with all of his coaching. Going more in depth on how he got into coaching in the first place, Tor says, “I played up until three years ago. I started at university just doing some coaching on the side. The coach I was playing for at the time I got on really well with and I started listening to him more. I saw a lot of similarities between us, and he would say ‘this is why I became a coach’ and I just thought that sounds like me. So when the opportunity came with the team that Tia used to play at, I took a coaching gig there. So I started doing that and I love it.”

Tor spoke to us a lot about his “why” when it comes to coaching. As he coaches the junior girls side of the national league, he shares, “I mainly do it because growing up there wasn’t much opportunity for Tia for the girls clubs. She always had to go quite far away to get to a team. So when there was the opportunity to do that I thought that’s something I want to be involved in.” 

We asked Tor about his hopes, dreams and plans for the future. Currently he studies law and business at university and eventually wants to go down the player agent route. “So whether it’s going into player representation, player agency work, using the coaching experience, contracts and stuff like that and combining it altogether” is something he would like to do down the line.

Looking inward

Tia and Tor both opened up about what they believe are their biggest strengths and weaknesses when it comes to playing and coaching basketball. Tia shares, “My strength is being super competitive. I think that helps a lot and also having the passion to play. We train twice a day most days so if you don’t have the passion for it, you know it’s not going to work.” Tia laughed when sharing her biggest weakness, “Probably the fact that I hate early mornings. So, if we have 8am gym sessions, I struggle to get up sometimes.” We feel you, Tia.

Tor believes his biggest strength is the relationship he builds with his players. “Getting to know them, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to motivate them is key. Because you’ve got a range of people and personalities and so it’s quite different how you’d motivate them, especially at that younger age group. You have to be mindful. You know you want to push them but you don’t want to push them too fast. You just want to challenge them in that safe environment.” Tor’s biggest weakness would be overthinking things “like trying to drill down into something small when it’s not always the best use of your time.” Many of us can relate there.

We then spoke to Tor in more detail about what he enjoys most about coaching. He said, “Seeing the players improve every week. When you see the players high-fiving each other and they’re like ‘yeah we got it!’ And also I love on the technical side, when you draw something up to use against the opposing team and it just works. Seeing the other coach slightly confused - it’s quite a nice feeling.” When talking about his biggest pain point Tor says, “With the U16 girls, it’s trying to get them all on the same page and working together. Not everyone’s going to be the best of friends at times and it’s trying to get them there. It doesn’t always pan out how it should be at that age where the brain’s developing so it can be tough sometimes.”

‍In working to become a better coach, Tor looks up to his PE teacher at school. “He was just always calm and he inspired me to be a coach. I try to use other mentors in other areas as well to inspire me, like in the business world and use it across sports. I think you see more of that now, with the analysis and science and stuff like that. Nowadays it’s not just coaches across the sports world.”

Something interesting that Tor does with his players currently, is help them focus on what their future career would look like if they didn’t make it to be a professional player. “We’ve brought in a strength and conditioning coach, and all these different people around basketball to talk to them, so that they know being a basketball player isn’t the only thing. This helps them think about what they want to do in the future and how they can get there.”

When asking Tia who has had the greatest impact on her, she said “The coach that made the biggest difference was Daniel Hildreth at secondary school, who pretty much coached me one on one every day. He made the biggest impact on me in terms of shooting and confidence.”

Issues with the industry

As mentioned earlier, Tia’s experience in basketball growing up was very much male dominated. We asked her what she thinks are the major issues in the BBL in general and she said, “Obviously there’s still such a difference between men and women’s basketball in terms of getting a crowd and getting people interested. Of course it’s gotten so much better over the years. Even the finals last week for the women’s, the number of attendees to the game is record breaking. But, the difference is still significant. So I guess promoting the platform more, getting people talking about it, advertising it more, and us becoming better as players to get more people to watch it, should improve. That’s the goal is to get women’s basketball on the same level as men’s.”

Ending on a fun note

We love to get our interviewees thinking about “what if”. One of the main ones we asked both Tia and Tor is which professional athlete would they take out to lunch if they had the chance. Tia said LeBron, as he’s the biggest star in the NBA. Tor said he’d probably pick someone from cricket, like Jimmy Andrson, because that’s what he grew up with watching a lot, before he gained an interest in basketball. 

A couple of ‘this or that’ questions to end the discussion, we asked Tia if she would rather win an MVP award or a team championship. Her response was, “Team championship for sure. I’ve been chasing a championship in this league for a while. So I’m hoping that comes for the team I’m at, soon.” And finally, we asked Tia if she’d rather peak early or late in her career. She said, “Definitely late. Rather than be really good and then people be like ‘that’s the girl who used to be good!’ I’d rather peak late.” 

There was a lot more we spoke about, so stay tuned on social media to see some of the video highlights from Tia and Tor in the interview!