Famous Aboriginal athletes

This is just a start of a collection of famous Aboriginal people who are or were successful in their sport.

Lord knows, the first Australians have had so much pain, suffering and injustice to contend with these past 222 years. They have faced it all, by and large, with a dignity that surpasses understanding, and have every right to feel proud of their achievements, sporting and otherwise. —Doug Conway, AAP [23]

Famous Aboriginal athletes

• Benn Harradine, Australia's first Indigenous field event athlete and the first Indigenous field athlete to represent Australia at an Olympic Game (Beijing 2008) and World Championships in Berlin. He holds the Australian and Oceania records for discus throwing.
• Cathy Freeman, track and field athlete.
• Jacob Groth, a sprinter, was a World Junior representative in 2004.
• Jeff 'Mitta' Dynevor, first Aboriginal athlete to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 1962 for boxing where he fought with his friends and community peers Eddie Barney and Adrian Blair. [3]
• Joshua Ross started as a track and field athlete in 2003 with his win in the Stawell Gift [16]. Joshua was ranked number 6 on the all-time list after less than a year in competitive athletics. He ended his career in November 2009 as the third fastest Australian over 100m of all time (10.08 seconds). Joshua represented Australia in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, during the world championships in 2005 and 2009 and the Commonwealth Games in 2006.
• Ken Hampton is a sprinter and member of the Alawa people from the Roper River area in the Northern Territory. Though taken when he was three years old he became schoolboy athletics champion and won the 1961 Bay Sheffield 130-yard race in 12.4 seconds. After his elite running days Ken became a community leader and Anglican deacon, and the first Aboriginal Justice of Peace in South Australia. In 2009 Ken was inducted to the Bay Sheffield Hall of Fame [20].
• Kyle Vander-Kuyp, track and field athlete.
• Nova Peris-Kneebone, track and field athlete.
• Otis Gowa, athlete.
• Patrick Johnson, sprinter. He won the men's 100m open at the 2006 Telstra A-Series.
• Tom Dancey was the second Aboriginal man to win the Stawell Easter Gift in 1910. Just four Aboriginal men won this 120 metres foot race: B Kinnear (1883), T Dancey (1910), L Cooper (1928) and J Ross (2003). Tom Dancey died in 1957.

Indigenous athletes have a rich history in Australian sport and it's great that athletics is rewarding and encouraging them.—Cathy Freeman, Aboriginal 400-metre runner [11]

Famous Aboriginal basketballers

• Nathan Jawai was part of the 2009 Australian men's basketball squad. He was the first Indigenous Australian to be selected into the 2008 NBA by Indiana.
• Patrick Mills, participated in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and was selected into the 2009 NBA draft by the Portland Trailblazers.
• Rohanee Cox stands at 182 cm tall and plays in the Women's National Basketball League (WNBL). She won the Eddie Gilbert Medal in 2008.

Famous Aboriginal boxers

• George Bracken
• Wally Carr had 101 professional fights between 1971 and 1986 from Super-Bantamweight to Heavyweight.
• Anthony Little, a boxer who represented Australia at the 2004 Olympics.
• Anthony Mundine
• Clayton Cook competes in Thai kick boxing (muaythai).
• Daniel Geale is a middleweight boxer who's first loss came after 22 fights by Anthony Mundine in 2009.
• Dave Sands
• Elley Bennett
• George Bracken
• Hector Thompson
• Lionel Rose became the first Aboriginal world bantamweight champion in 1968. His life is celebrated in the movie Lionel and with a statue in his home town of Warragul, Victoria. He retired from boxing in 1975.
• Robby Peden
• Ron (Ranold) Richards (1910-1967) is the holder of six boxing titles (middleweight and heavyweight). He retired from boxing in 1945 having amassed a ring career in excess of 140 fights and more than 60 knockout victories [25]. He was ranked number three in both middleweight and light-heavyweight in 1938. Richards was inducted into the Queensland Indigenous Sporting Hall of Fame in 2010 and into the Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003. A memorial in his honour was unveiled in May 2010 at the Purga Aboriginal Mission site near Ipswitch, Queensland.
• Sam Ah-See is still a young boxer from Orange, NSW, born in 1991.
• Tony Mundine

Famous Aboriginal cricketers

• Dan Christian, a Wiradjuri man, started playing junior cricket in Sydney to graduate from Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy in 2003. He also played in the UK a few times [12]. He was the captain of the 2009 British tour of the Australian Indigenous cricket team.
• Eddie Gilbert was the only bowler to knock the bat out of Sir Donald Bradman's hands and to have bowled him for a duck. He played 23 matches for Queensland in the 1930s during which he took 87 wickets at an average of 29. A statue in his honour has been erected at Brisbane's Allan Border Field [6].
• Faith Thomas (nee Choulthard) played her only test for Australia in 1958. Faith is the the first (and as of 2008 still the only) Aboriginal woman cricketer with national honours [8].
• Jason Gillespie has a 71-Test career and is Australia's first Indigenous cricketer to play at the hightest level [15]. Jason finished with 259 wickets and produced a double century in his final Test match.
• Jeff Cook is a Kamilaroi man and leader of the victorious 2006 NSW Imparja Cup team. He gained his first cricket experience in the 1990s while playing in Britain for more than a decade. He made more than 4,000 runs, including five centuries, with a top score of 137, collecting 84 wickets.
• Johnny Mullagh was a member of the first Australian international touring sporting team, the 'Native XI', in 1868. He is commemorated at the Johynny Mullagh Interpretative Centre in Harrow, Victoria, along with a statue at the oval. Each year an Indigenous team takes on a non-Indigenous team in the Johnny Mullagh Cup [13].
• Vince Copley played as a young man at state level. He was on the organising committee of the Lords Taverner's Imparja Cub since its inception. A medal of that competition was named after him. In the late 1950s he coached the Curramulka Football Club to consecutive premierships. He was politically active from the late 1960s and a member of the Aborigines' Progress Association [19].

The Australian Indigenous All Stars cricket squad of 2008 was made of the following players:

Famous Aboriginal footballers/Rugby League players

• Alan Karpany was the first footballer to win the Mail Medal in the Murray Downs Football League in 1935. The Mail Medal was started by the Adelaide Sunday Mail for the best and fairest player [5].
• Ambrose McDonald started playing football professionally at 25 and became one of the hardest players for Tasmanian Premier League side Sandy Bay [7].
• Arthur Beetson, Rugby League player and 'greatest attacking forward of his generation', became the first Aboriginal player to captain Australia in any major sport when he took the helm of the Kangaroos against France in 1973. He also led Australia in the 2nd Test of the 1974 Ashes series, and in six World Cup games (1975/1977).
• Bruce 'Larpa' Stewart, Rugby League player in the 1960s.
• Bruce Olive played for Newtown between 1963 and 1967.
• Cliffy Lyons, Rugby League player for Manly in the 1980s.
• Corey Ah Chee, debuted in 2000 in the South Australian Football League (SAFL) from which he retired in 2009 after 206 senior games. He continued in the North Eastern Football League (NEFL) in South Australia [14].
• David Wirrpanda, footballer and Western Australia Young Australian of the Year 2008. Since making his debut as a 16-year-old for Perth's West Coast Eagles David has notched 227 appearances for the club before retiring in 2009 after the birth of his first child. David was named an All-Australian, represented Australia in International Rules matches against Ireland and was the inaugural AFL Community Leadership Award winer in 2003 [21]. His David Wirrpanda Foundation (www.dwf.org.au) helps underprivileged young people.
• Eddie Betts, AFL player from Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia [4].

• Eric Simms, Rugby League player for South Sydney in the 1960s and 1970s. "His skill with the boot brought his side so many field goals that the lawmakers downgraded their value from two points to one." [2]
• Eric Robinson played Aboriginal Rugby League for the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the 1960s. In 2008, one son played first grade Rugby League (Ricky Walford over 100 games with St George) and three of his grandsons (Travis Robinson with the Sharks, Reece Robinson with Broncos and Nathan Merrit with Souths).
• Gavin Wanganeen, was the first player to reach 300 AFL games during the 2000-2009 decade. He started playing on 14 April 1990, aged just under 17 years, with the Magpies. His score includes 127 games for Essendon, 173 games for Port Adelaide and 8 for South Australia. He quit in 2006 due to injury. Gavin was inducted to the Australian Football League Hall of Fame in June 2010.
• George Green, believed to be the first Indigenous League player in 1909, though his true heritage was never established. He played 16 games for Estern Suburbs and 92 for North Sydney in a career that stretched from 1908 to 1922 [24].
• Jonathan Thurston, Rugby League player and inaugural winner of the Eddie Gilbert Medal in 2007. He's rated by many as the 'best league player in the world'.
• Lance 'Buddy' Franklin, became the first Indigenous player to kick 100 goals in a season.
• Larry Corowa, Rugby League player for Balmain in the 1970s.
• Lin and Dick Johnson, Rugby League players in the 1940s playing in different teams.
• Lionel Morgan became the first Aboriginal Test rugby league player to represent Australia in the 2nd and 3rd Tests against France in 1960. Later in that same year Morgan played for the Kangaroos in the Rugby League World Cup in England.
• Maurice Rioli
• Michael Long began his football career with St Marys Club in Darwin. In 1989 he started playing for Essendon. After 12 years with the club he had participated in 190 games. Long then started working as an ambassador and chaired the Long Walk Foundation. In 2007 he was inducted to the AFL Hall of Fame.
• Neil Maynard played as full back in North Launceston, Tasmania. He holds the club's record at 323 senior games [10].
• Neil 'Nicky' Winmar who was involved in Australia's most infamous sporting racism moment in the 1993 season. Nicky's match-winning performance against Collingwood brought on some racist taunts from hard-core Collingwood fans. At the end of the game, Nicky famously lifted his jumper and pointed to his black skin.
• Peter Burgoyne started his AFL career with Port Adelaide Power in 1997 and played 240 senior games with them. He was the first player to get to the 200-AFL game milestone in the Power colours.
• Roy Baira is a north Queensland Rugby League player who played for Brothers and Machay Cutters.
• Shaun Cusack, from Alice Springs, retired from being an active AFL player in 2009 to continue as a coach.
• Troy Cook in 2010 ended a 303-game senior football career started in 1993, with 108 games with the Perth Demons, 43 with the Sydney Swans, 150 with the Fremantle Dockers and two while representing Western Australia.
• Wendell Sailor debuted in Brisbane in 1993 and played for Brisbane, the Dragons and Wallabies and finally St George Illawarra. His first grade tally stands at 222 [17].

Australia's chequered history of racism was never more evident than on its sporting fields. —Sydney Morning Herald [22]

Famous in motorsport

• Chad Reed, motocross rider. He was born and raised in Kurri Kurri (NSW, Hunter Valley) but went on to live in Florida, USA. Chad started riding motorcycles aged seven and won numerous amateur competitions. In Australia he won two Supercross championchips before racing in Europe. Reed moved to the US in 2002, and after numerous successes won the 2004 AMA Supercross championchip. He finished second in 2005 and 2006. Chad Reed is said to be one of the richest Australian sportspeople—yet hardly a household name in Australia [18].
• Brad Hardman, golfer. He played the Australian Indigenous Golf Championships in Alice Springs. Brad lost one leg as a 15-year-old in a car crash [1].

Famous Aboriginal socceroos

• Travis Dodd played his 100th match with Adelaide United in 2009. He became the second person to achieve this milestone (after Matt Thompson of Newcastle earlier that year).

Famous Aboriginal softballers

• Stacey Porter captained the Australian women's softball team during the International Softball Federation's world championships in Caracas, Venzuela, in 2010. During the Beijing Olympics the team won bronze.

Famous Aboriginal tennis players

• Evonne Cawley was famous in the early 1970s and received the Australian of the Year award in 1971.

Famous Aboriginal weightlifters

• Davina Hughes won three gold medals at the Arafura Games in Darwin in 2009.

Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
[1] 'He's the face of black golf', Koori Mail 422, p.91 [2] NIT 10/7/2008 p.27 [3] 'Cherbourg boxing legend passes on', Koori Mail 431 p.27 [4] 'Eddie Betts is one of the best!', Koori Mail 431 p.87 [5] 'Mail Medallists named', Koori Mail 440 p.77 [6] 'Statue for black cricketer who bowled Bradman unveiled', NIT 27/11/2008 p.44 [7] '13th Cup a winner', Koori Mail 441 p.38 [8] 'It's all about having Faith', Koori Mail 441 p.77 [9] 'Trophy named after brothers', Koori Mail 442 p.89 [10] 'A living legend', Koori Mail 452 p.85 [11] 'Another Cathy?', Koori Mail 448 p.92 [12] 'Yarning with Dan Christian', Koori Mail 454 p.80 [13] 'Celebrating our first cricketers', Koori Mail 450 p.74 [14] 'Ah Chee coup for Eudunda', Koori Mail 464 p.74 [15] 'Jason Gillespie takes country coaching role', Koori Mail 464 p.76 [16] 'Josh Ross hangs up his shoes', Koori Mail 464 p.79 [17] 'Sailor charts new course', Koori Mail 464 p.86 [18] 'On the top of the world', Koori Mail 464 p.87 [19] 'Vince's lifetime work honoured', Koori Mail 467 p.74 [20] '1961 Bay Sheffield winner inducted into hall of fame', Koori Mail 467 p.76 [21] 'Wirrpanda to play season in WAFL', Koori Mail 469 p.78 [22] 'Pioneers' pride lives on, despite all the bruises', SMH 13/2/2010 [23] 'Racial pride is fine; but what about equality?', Koori Mail 470 p.76 [24] 'Turning tide', Koori Mail 471 p.82 [25] 'Our greatest boxer?', Koori Mail 475 p.73