Jess Foley started with the AIS in basketball. The shooting guard or small forward won a WNBL championship with Adelaide - her career highlight - and played for the Australian Opals.

But it was a moment in her second sport which blew her away.

Foley was part of Adelaide's premiership-winning AFLW team in the 2019 grand final against Carlton.

"I remember a really special moment in the third quarter," she said.

"We were playing a relatively new sport (it was the league's third season) in a city that absolutely loves men's footy, they're obsessed with their home teams (Adelaide and Port Adelaide).

"We were hoping for 20,000 people to show up and then they didn't have enough staff on to get people into the game.

"I was really focused on the game, but then were up by about 40 points, I was thinking, 'we've got this one'.

"I was sitting on the bench when team-mate Erin Phillips had torn her ACL and we had a few minutes while they took her off the ground and I just looked around the stadium and it was completely full and everybody was on their feet clapping for this girl as she was being taken off the ground.

"There was just so much support and everyone was there supporting women and appreciating the fact that women were playing sport in that arena.

"It just felt really special, it was quite a surreal moment for me and I felt like it was changing the face of female sport in Australia."

The Crows' ruck was indeed a part of history with the 53,034 fans at Adelaide Oval the largest attendance at a stand-alone women's sporting event in Australia.

It was topped by the 86,174 who watched the Australia-India T20 World Cup final at the MCG in March, but the two sports have combined to take women's sport to another level.

Interestingly it was in her former career, and more than 16,000kms from home, that Foley had previously experienced that passion for women's sport.

Foley attended famous US basketball college Duke University from 2002-2005.

The Duke Blue Devils men's and women's teams boast the most famous supporters' group in the country - The Cameron Crazies.

Named after the Cameron Indoor Stadium, the 1200-strong student section stand courtside and are 'in-your-face-type' fans, often camping out so they don't miss out on attending.

"They'll be jumping and singing and will have their hands over someone's shoulder as they're trying to throw the ball in from the sideline and they'll create chants for opposition players," Foley said.

"That for me was the craziness of basketball in America, the WNBA is popular, but it's not on the scale of college basketball."

Foley was drafted by WNBA outfit Indiana Fever in 2006, but didn't play a game due to injury and was then traded to Connecticut Sun two years later.

"I spent about five or six weeks in a training camp, it was a pretty tough gig," Foley said.

"There were about 24 girls came into camp and I think they already had 11 of the 12 spots filled, so there were 12 of us vying for one spot, I was pretty happy with how I went (Foley missed selection).

"I don't have any regrets about it, I certainly had a great basketball career here in Australia, I got to play in Turkey for a little while, I certainly gave it everything I could."

Foley combined studying medicine with basketball in the latter part of her career, which finished in 2015.

"I was ready to concentrate wholly on medicine and really there was no anticipation of playing football in the future," she said.

But then the footy 'bug' bit.

"I had a couple of friends with the AFLW team here in Adelaide, Bec Goddard, who was coach at the time, and Erin Phillips is a former basketball team-mate and I used to go out and watch some of the local league with Bec, just for something to do on the weekend," Foley said.

"I went out and watched their AFLW games in their first season and it was just awesome, I think 11,000 people turned up for the first game and the enthusiasm, the aggression, the fitness, everything about the way the girls played inspired me.

"I was halfway through my (medicine) internship and I was missing having something organised to go to."

Foley spent time with Sturt in the SANFLW and was soon drafted at No.30 in the 2018 AFLW draft to the Crows.

A handful of games later, Foley was a premiership player, collecting 18 disposals and 27 hit-outs in the grand final against Carlton and finishing runner-up to superstar Phillips in the best and fairest.

"I loved footy growing up, if there had been a footy league in Albury-Wodonga, I would have played in it," Foley said.

Now 37, Foley retired in March to focus on medicine.

"I don't think I would have been successful in sport if I didn't pursue other interests," she said.

"I think my overall work ethic and passion about multiple topics reduced the pressure, so having study to fall back on, it let me go out and compete at sport with a bit of freedom.

"I look at a lot of the young guys enter the AFL and they're going straight in as 18, 19-year-olds and might get churned through the system in three or four years and come out and be completely lost with no direction.

"I think it's a huge benefit to be more well-rounded, for me it made me more successful at sport because it was an escape and when I was there, I was 100 per cent in it and didn't have any pressure because I wanted to be there, not because I had to."

Foley's sports career might now be over, but she won't be leaving the arena for good.

"I'm training to be a GP and will sit my exams next year, I obviously want to finish off that training program, but I'd love to be still around sports teams in the future, as a sports doctor as well," she said.

Foley will soon move to Geelong, to be closer to family, and you get the impression someone who's competed at the highest level and been able to juggle such heavy commitments will be just as successful in the next phase of her life.