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 Rodney Woods speaks to David Waite, who is being inducted to the hall of fame.
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Being too old to play under-14 football led David Waite to a successful career in volleyball, despite him not knowing what the sport was when he started.
The Shepparton product has been nominated for induction into Greater Shepparton Sports Hall of Fame and Waite said he always had an appetite for representing his state or country in sport.
“I was quite fortunate that my father was a pistol shooter and he shot for Victoria and so I saw him wearing his state uniform when I was younger and I was like ‘I wouldn’t mind representing Victoria or even Australia one day’," Waite said.
“I had no idea what sport (I wanted to compete in) and it’s a unique experience to be allowed to play a sport you love and travel the world.”
Waite explained how volleyball became his sport of choice.
“(My passion) Probably started when I was at high school,” he said.
“Back in those days, when I was 14, the cut off to play under-14s football was June 30 and my birthday is July 2.
“All of my friends were were able to play football in the age competition, but I couldn’t because I was too old, so I looked for another sport to play and there was a couple of guys in Year 9 that were putting a junior team together, so I joined the team and from there played volleyball.
“I must admit I had to ask what it was.
“When I went home I said to Dad ‘I’m going to play volleyball’ and he said ‘great, what do you use, a stick, a bat or ball?’ (I didn’t know the answer).”
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While a broken leg ended his career in 1999, Waite still had plenty of highlights to share across about 15 years of competing.
“It may sound like a cliché, but being a part of a team and competing was a bit of a highlight,” he said.
“I'm a bit of a competitive nut and for a little kid from the country to be able to fill three passports playing sport, something I loved, and travelling around the world was just phenomenal.
“I've pretty much been to every continent, I don’t know how may countries I have been to now, but I played over 250 international matches travelling all over the world, so it was a dream come true.
“Playing world championships in Japan (was also a highlight).
“I would have loved to have played at the Olympics, but it didn’t work out that way for me, but the world championships, Asian championships, Olympic qualifiers, trips to Russia and China in the early days.
“China back then wasn’t the China of today and they were all amazing experiences.”
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While he enjoyed the team environment, one of Waite's biggest achievements was winning the most valuable player award in 1994.
“In the early days, in 1994, I was awarded Australia’s most valuable player,” he said.
“I took that as a significant achievement, not just a significant achievement for me, but for everyone who supported me through the whole journey — Mum, Dad, family.
“Those early mornings when Dad would get up and drive me to Melbourne for state training — without that, none of that would ever have taken place.”
While the two-time Australian Institute of Sport scholarship winner didn't compete at the Olympics, Waite did commentate the volleyball at the Sydney event in 2000 and Athens in 2004.
“The commentary was really enjoyable,” Waite said.
“The Sydney Olympics was a classic because we were sitting courtside and not many people know it, but every event at the Olympics has a jury, so there are men and women that sit behind to make sure the whole match is conducted appropriately by the referees, the ball boys and ball girls do the right thing and even they check our commentary to make sure we aren’t being biased or supporting one team over the other.
“At one point at the Sydney Olympics, the Australians were playing against Spain for a chance to make it through to the quarter-finals and it was a very close match and Australia were struggling a bit and my co-commentator said ’what do you want to do?’.
“I said ‘let’s upset the jury behind us and really get the crowd barracking for Australia'.
“So we had pretty much the whole crowd on its feet cheering for Australia.
“I’m not saying we had any part in it, but Australia ended up winning that match and qualified to go through to the quarter-finals, which was the highest achievement in volleyball that an Australian national team had ever achieved.
“It was phenomenal.
“Interestingly, the jury didn't have a problem with our commentary, but they did two days later when somehow they felt we were cheering for Kenya more than China in the women’s match we were commentating and we were just commentating.
“We didn’t care who won.”
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When asked what it meant to be nominated for the hall of fame, Waite said it was an honour.
“It's a bit of an honour really because Shepp has had some amazing athletes come through there,” he said.
“People have competed on the world stage across all their sports.
“To be recognised is quite amazing and it's also quite amazing recognition for what we would probably classify in Australia as a minor sport.
“It's not football, not cricket, it's not tennis, so to have someone from volleyball recognised is great for the sport as well.”
Sports journalist