Local Legends

Andrew Mathieson
TIRELESS sport administrator Ross Synot does his best work at night.
Not that he’s overworked.
In fact, Ross brags he has everything under control.
The unusually late hours are unfortunately not of the 64-year-old’s own doing.
“I’m a very good time manager – that’s the one thing I do well,” Ross remarks.
“But even though I’m now semi-retired I do have chronic fatigue syndrome, so I have to do things when I can do it.
“That might be at three o’clock in the morning.
“People keep telling me my computer is wrong because they get emails at all times of the night.”
Ross toils away in his Newtown home office at all hours, needing to stop for at least an afternoon nap just metres away in the bedroom.
He now attempts to combat the disorder marked by physical and mental exhaustion that still baffles doctors.
“It’s about how you manage it,” Ross explains.
“Chronic fatigue is an illness you can’t fight.
“I started to manage it well when I accepted I had to change.”
Ross jots down every appointment in a compact pocket diary that fits neatly in his shirt pocket.
The diary only has limited space and is full of scribbles after crossing out each appointment afterward.
“I like to have something on each day,” Ross says, “but I never have too many meetings in one day.”
Despite taking charge of Grace McKellar Centre during 27 years of his professional life, Ross has still presided over a plethora of lawn tennis and badminton tournaments and has been the driving force behind Geelong’s sports academy.
A bit of gentle persuasion from Ross at another badminton tournament that the city’s sporting grassroots was missing out big time was enough to change the mind of Sport Minister Justin Madden.
After proposals to various local government bodies and endless submissions to government, Ross’s dream became a reality four years later.
“The worst thing people can say to me is that it can’t be done,” Ross smiles.
Ross was a player, too. Badminton three nights a week, tennis twice a week and he was able to manage a game of squash in between.
But the fatigue disorder has forced him to walk away from tennis and now he only plays social badminton on Saturdays.
The experience moved Ross to convene Geelong Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Support Group.
“Sometimes I’ll come out and play one set now and I’ll be tired, I’ll be worn out,” he admits.
“Other days I’ll play three or four.
“They’ll get someone else on the court in my place and I can just walk off.”
A 15-year-old Ross first jumped into the realms of sports administration to assist his father co-ordinate the Geelong tennis open.
Four years later Ross was the club’s tournament director.
It was the same year a vacancy opened up as treasurer of a new badminton club.
Ross was still in his element 45 years later as he directed the best 110 badminton juniors in under-15 nationals competition at Corio Leisuretime Centre last week.
Ross gazes over several noisy courts inside a packed hall and utters: “They’re starting their journey into sport.”
It rekindles his own memory.
The tennis devotee accidentally fell into badminton after his church decided to accommodate a couple of courts.
“I only went up to practice one night and didn’t think I was much good,” Ross grins.
“I didn’t go back and they rang me up six weeks later and said they were putting two teams in and I was the first player in the top team.
“I said ‘I’m no good’ and they said ‘You’re our best’.”