Basketball On The Internet.

MICHELE Timms has turned 50.

Think about that. 

Timmsy!

50!

It's kinda hard to wrap your mind around because, by doing it, you sort of realise how old you're getting.

I first saw the super athletic guard, all legs and relentless fury, at the 1984 Australian Club Championship at Melbourne's Albert Park Stadium.

I had a game to coach coming up against her Bulleen team in the next round and looking at this energetic ball of enthusiasm and the pace at which she pushed her team, gave me a cold sweat.

There was no way of stopping her.

TIMMSY THE FLAME: Michele Timms pacing Sydney Flames against Phoenix teammate Michelle Brogan.

I don't recall the actual game now, just her. She was something special, even as a teenager.

She followed the man who would be her mentor, Tom Maher, to Nunawading Spectres and began winning WNBL championships as a matter of course.

She landed more titles in Perth and Sydney.

Melbourne Boomers and Dandenong Rangers - the WNBL's Melbourne-based teams - play their derbies for the Michele Timms Cup.

A seven-time WNBL All Star, Timmsy pioneered Aussie ballers heading to Europe in the 80s.

Then she was signed for the fledgling WNBA at Phoenix Mercury where she became such a big star, her #7 uniform was outselling any NBA top in Arizona.

The club eventually retired her number.

Yep, and still she was our Timmsy, wracking up 264 international games for Australia with FIBA World Championships in 1986-90-94-98 and Olympics in 1988-96-2000.

SILVER NIGHT: Michele with the Opals' Silver at the 2000 Olympics.

Again, a flash memory for me is of Australia desperately having to beat Italy in Adelaide in the last intragroup round of the 1994 Worlds and Michele being simply sensational.

She has played at the highest levels, coached at all levels, bringing that youthful exuberance, intensity and joy to all she touched.

It is hard to see her as anything other than that effervescent long-legged kid terrorising the courts at Albert Park 31 years ago because that same easy full smile and mischief in her eyes is never far away.

Holy moley. Michele is 50.

Happy birthday to one of the game's greatest, then, now and forevermore.