Amanda Cahill's standout basketball career has full Luxembourg chapter

Amanda Cahill still gets buckets. She never would've expected so many of them to come in Luxembourg, but the small country surrounded by Germany, France and Belgium has become the latest stage for the greatest basketball player in Clyde history. "I never would've guessed where I would be right now," Cahill said. "Probably turned out better than I could've imagined." Cahill, 26, just completed her fourth season playing for Residence de Walferdange. She averaged 25.2 points, 10.8 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 1.8 steals per game as her squad made it to the league semifinals. "We've done pretty well as a team," Cahill said. "We won the cup last year, which was cool… I've been doing decent." Cahill's involvement with basketball in Luxembourg is in the midst of taking another leap, too. She will represent the country in the European Championships for Small Nations, which is held later in May in Malta and will also include countries like Cyprus and Montenegro. Luxembourg was allowed to add one non-citizen to the team, given that the person had played in the country for at least three years. "The coach reached out to me and asked if I would be interested," Cahill said. "It's done by the Olympic Committee. There's an opening ceremony, a closing ceremony… Malta would be fun to go to. It's more for the experience than anything." As a player at Clyde High School, Cahill couldn't have pictured where basketball has taken her. With the Fliers, she got to play in big games with her best friends while her father, John, coached from the sideline. Cahill's 2014 class went 99-6 in their career, including a perfect 56-0 in the Sandusky Bay Conference. They made a pair of final fours. Cahill was Division II player of the year as a sophomore, junior and senior, and she surpassed the 2,000-point and 1,000-rebound milestones. "I always look back very fondly on that time," Cahill said. "The girls that I played with are still some of my best friends… It's hard to pinpoint one specific time because there were so many good times with them. Between them and playing with my dad, it was such a special time in my life. It was a fairytale high school career honestly all around." Cahill's standout play in high school led to a college career at Indiana University, where she started all 135 games of her career. Cahill capped her career with a WNIT title, earning MVP of the tournament as she totaled 50 points across her final three college games. Ending up in Luxembourg from there was all about timing. Cahill, who studied elementary education, needed to stick around and finish her student-teaching in the latter half of 2018. She and her agent looked into Luxembourg and Australia. The season in Luxembourg started a month sooner, and Cahill received a good offer as one of two possible Americans that Residence could have on its roster. "It was actually really random," Cahill said. "... I didn't know anything about it. It's such a small country right in the middle of Europe. It's easy to travel from. At least the younger people speak English, they all speak like four languages which is really amazing. You develop a little community here of people." There hasn't been much desire from Cahill to leave. She didn't go overseas with the goal of climbing the basketball mountaintop. She wanted to continue to hoop and found a central location in Europe to do so. Cahill spent the 2022 summer in Australia but has otherwise laid her roots in Luxembourg. She plans on playing at least one more season with Residence, which will allow her to apply for citizenship. "I think it will be nice to be able to work in the EU and be able to kind of come and go freely without having to worry about a visa," Cahill said. "This is very future minded, but it would be nice for kids to have an EU passport." To gain citizenship, Cahill will have to pass a test in Luxembourgish, which has elements of German and French. She's already started on the language prep in Luxembourgish and has gotten plenty of experience in multiple languages in her time in the country. "I remember one thing that really threw me off at first was going to the grocery store," Cahill said. "Everything was in French or German. I remember being a little overwhelmed not being able to read all the signs for the aisles and having to go down all the aisles." After next season, Cahill isn't sure exactly what will come next — although she has a summer destination with the Wisconsin GLO, a professional team based in Oshkosh that plays in the Global Women's Basketball Association. She pointed out that "going with the flow" led her to a great spot that she couldn't possibly have planned out for herself, and so she's prepared to continue with that approach. Cahill hopes to teach — she has been able to work as a substitute teacher at the international school in town to stay sharp. She also wants to stay involved with basketball. Those future plans are still a little ways off, though. Cahill had almost retired after the 2019-20 season, but between an injury and then COVID-19 wiping out the conclusion to the season, that time wasn't right. And the star from Clyde hasn't come up with a good enough reason to stop playing basketball yet. "I was gonna be done, but it didn't sit very well with me," Cahill said. "(2020) was kind of a bad season to end on… It's kind of an ongoing joke because every year I go, 'It's my last year,' and then I keep playing."