Sports Hall of Fame - Terrie Crozier

By Tyler Maher

Jul 14, 2021

This year, 26 district sporting legends are being inducted to the hall of fame, honour roll and junior honour roll categories in the Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame. The News is featuring stories on each of the inductees in the lead-up to the induction ceremony on August 6. Today News reporter Tyler Maher speaks to Terrie Crozier, who is being inducted into the hall of fame.

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Terrie Crozier always felt like she had big shoes to fill.

Growing up as the daughter of one of Shepparton's best-known all-round sportswomen — Peg Curtis — Crozier felt the pressure of her mother's reputation from an early age.

“Mum was good with bat and ball, squash, tennis, badminton, table tennis, she was really really good with those sports,” Crozier said.

“And whenever I started to play those sports people would say ‘oh you're Peg's daughter, you'll be really good at this'.

“And I'd just get so deflated because I could never be Mum.

“I actually steered away from the individual sports to play team sports because then I could just be a player in my own right and I could be good in my own right.”

But one achievement Crozier can now stand side-by-side with her mother in is their place in the Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame.

Curtis was inducted to the honour roll in 2019, while Crozier will join the ranks of the hall of fame next month.

“I couldn't speak when (I got the call) to tell me that I would be inducted into the hall of fame,” Crozier said.

“I was so pleased for myself, for the game of lawn bowls and for my family, who've supported me with every step along the way.

“It is a real honour to be inducted.”

Lawn bowls is the vehicle which has carried Crozier into the hall of fame, with her achievements not only playing the sport — but officiating it at the highest level — standing out among the region's sporting stars.

But Crozier's beginnings in the sport were not straight forward to say the least — rather it was an off-hand comment to her parents that got the ‘bowl’ rolling.

“In 1998 the Commonwealth Games were on in Malaysia I think and the men's fours gave away an eight which actually cost them the gold medal,” Crozier said.

“A day later I was talking to Mum and Dad at home and I said the game can't be that hard that you can give away an eight when it's really important.

“I just kind of left it at that. Mum looked at me and Dad rolled his eyes, because they were both bowlers, and anyway a couple of days later I get a call from Bill Sinclair who was the Shepparton Bowls Club coach and he said ‘I believe you're interested in learning how to play bowls'.

“Well I didn't know what to say. I thought ‘God, I'm not going to play bowls’, but I said ‘oh well, I'll give it a go'.

“So I gave it a go and I wasn't overly fond of it, but I said to Dad ‘I just can't keep borrowing other people's bowls to play’, so he bought me an early Christmas present and he bought me a set of second hand bowls and it just went from there.”

Umpiring came later, but it was as an official where Crozier's bowls career really began to take her places.

“It would have been probably six months after I started playing, you get told all different things about the rules of the game and some of them are really contradictory. So I thought, ‘I've got to learn the rules or I'm just not going to enjoy playing’ — and that's how my umpiring career started,” she said.

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“That would have been 1999 when I started my first umpires course and I got my first umpires badge in 2000, level one national umpire, and then the appointments keep coming.

Crozier's journey to officiate at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne actually began in 2003 when Bowls Australia called for applications.

“They had about 2500 applicants and I thought ‘oh well, I'll give it a go because at least I'll learn a little bit along the way’ — not thinking for one moment that I would make it,” Crozier said.

“(When I made the last 150) we traveled around Victoria umpiring different things while the selectors were there and finally in 2005 the letter came. The letter sat on the shelf for about three days, I couldn't open it to see whether I was selected or not.”

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Along with the 2006 Commonwealth Games, Crozier was an umpire at a myriad of tournaments and championships across the globe after she became one of the first people to qualify as an International Technical Official.

This included another Commonwealth Games appointment in Delhi in 2010.

“I really enjoyed the (Melbourne) Commonwealth Games,” Crozier said.

“The players are close, although you're not allowed to fraternise with them. You get to meet them and it was just a really good experience and I umpired some finals, I did the ladies pairs gold medal match and the ladies triples gold medal match which were a real buzz.

“In 2009 they brought in this new qualification for umpires which was an international technical official, and if you wanted to do international games that's what you had to become.

“Both my partner and I achieved success and we were in the first 10 to be given their ITOs in the world. I think I was nine and Michael was 10. We were pretty happy with that.

“(2010) was the year I was asked to do the gold medal match, which was the top job, the ladies singles. When I was asked to do it I thought ‘oh goodness me, I'm not good enough to do the gold medal match, it's going to be broadcast around the world, I'm not good enough to do this'.

“And then I thought ‘well you're only going to get one shot at it, so give it a go'.

“And I did and I enjoyed it, I didn't make any mistakes — well none that I know of — and it was just a wonderful experience to be able to participate at that level of umpiring.”

Crozier now lives in Bowen following a long stint in the Northern Territory — where she won a state singles, pairs, triples and fours title — and would encourage every bowler to try their hand at umpiring.

“The experience of seeing the rest of the world is also part of being an international technical official,” she said.

“Being an umpire also improves your bowls, because you see what other people are doing.

“When you're marking a game — and you're also a bowler — you stand there and you think ‘why is he or she coming this way?’ and then they play the shot and you think, ‘well I wouldn't have come that way, but that's a really good shot to play’ and you take it away with you and you remember it next time the situation comes up.”