Thursday, 18 May 2023

Yvonne Higgins

Nicholas McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:16): (246) On Tuesday night of this week I was honoured to join Basketball Victoria here in the city at their annual awards. It was the first time in four years that those awards had been held, because of COVID. It was an honour for me to present on behalf of Basketball Victoria an award to Yvonne Higgins. I presented that award, sadly because Yvonne passed away two years ago, to James Whelan. He is the president of the Maffra Amateur Basketball Association. The award Yvonne was awarded with that night was the Jack Terrill Medal. It is named in honour of the former Basketball Victoria Country (BVC) founding president and long-time Basketball Victoria Country council member the late Jack Terrill. The annual award recognises a significant and outstanding contribution by an individual to basketball in country Victoria.

As a teenager Yvonne, I am told, first started playing and refereeing basketball as a junior and then played as a senior back in the 1970s. She played representative basketball for many decades with Maffra, playing in the division 1 country championships and forming great rivalries, I am told, against the likes of the Lockett girls from Ballarat, Marree Canny from Wangaratta and Wendy Smith from Korumburra. Yvonne coached domestic and representative teams for Maffra, including generations of families, all of whom gained far more than just basketball skills from her tutelage. She was a long-time team manager of the Maffra Country Basketball League team. She was also an A-grade referee, and for close to 50 years she refereed at various levels, from domestic to tournaments, Victorian Junior Basketball League (VJBL) Friday nights, CBL and all major BVC events, including many medal games. Yvonne also mentored countless junior referees from not only Maffra but the Gippsland area to become better officials for the game of basketball.

According to Mr Whelan, the Maffra Amateur Basketball Association president, perhaps Yvonne’s greatest achievement was being the face and lifeblood of their association and president for 35 years from the age of 27 to her time of passing at 62, some two years ago, as I have said. In that time Yvonne oversaw two stadium expansions due to the growth of basketball in Maffra under her leadership, to the point where their association was the biggest in the Wellington shire. For those in this chamber that are not familiar, Maffra has a population of around 5000. The association has a membership of some 700. Yvonne was instrumental and forward thinking, supporting multiple Maffra teams entering the VJBL competition, which was unheard of for a country association of their size to do at that time and has been since. During her time Yvonne won three division 1 country championships, two of which saw the teams invited to Darwin for the under-14 Australian club championships. I invite the Premier to join with me in recognising and celebrating the life and contribution to basketball of Maffra’s unstoppable Yvonne Higgins.