Fay McCormick.
For 28 years Fay McCormick has been president of Rye Basketball Club. Week in and week out Fay coaches and cheers on her teams. She may be getting on in years, but her vibrant energy and upbeat attitude defy time.
Fay has always been sports-mad. She grew up in Camberwell and played basketball at school. “I’m not what my mother intended me to be,” she says. “Mum wanted me to be a real little lady. She sent me to a ladies’ college, but at six and a half they told Mum I wasn’t suitable.” She laughs.
In 1987 Fay moved to the Peninsula with her husband Tom, who worked as a ranger with Parks Victoria. Fay has great memories of summers spent camping on the foreshore with her grandchildren while Tom was working. When Fay joined the committee at Rye Basketball Club in 1992, Tom became treasurer.
In 1999 the couple were made life members. Sadly, Tom died in 2005, aged 58. “He had a brain aneurysm. There’s no warning with that.” Fay pauses, then says with a chuckle: “He’s given me more work to do.” Good humour appears to be part of Fay’s longevity recipe.
Fay’s involvement with the club started when her grandson Toby was eight and asked her to find him a basketball team. Fay signed Toby up with Rye and before she knew it she was on the committee. “I got talked into being vice-president. I said, ‘I will, but I’ll never step up to president’. The following year I stepped up because nobody else wanted to do it.”
Fay also coaches two teams, the under-18 girls and under-9 boys. “I’ve coached teams over the years and they just win, win, win. But I love to see them lose. It gives them a challenge. Life’s not about winning all the time. You can’t be on top all the time. You have to deal with all levels of life to survive.”
Fay’s hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed. In 2000, Fay and Tom were awarded the Les Thomas Trophy acknowledging their contribution to community basketball. In 2012 Fay received a Certificate of Appreciation from Basketball Victoria for 15 years of dedicated service. And in 2017 Fay was inducted into the Southern Peninsula Basketball Association Hall of Fame.
Grandson Toby is now 40 and hung up his basketball shoes this year after the birth of his daughter, Fay’s 11th great-grandchild. This mighty matriarch has six grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. None of them plays basketball at the moment but that doesn’t mean Fay will be stepping down any time soon.
“I’ll keep doing it as long as I can. They laugh at me at the stadium. They say, ‘You’ll be coming in on your walker’. It gives me a purpose. All the kids are lovely, and I love seeing them enjoy the game.”
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