Continuing biography of Territory Crusading Editor," Big Jim" Bowditch
Both Jim and Betty Bowditch were keen
squash players. Betty was so good that she was employed in a squash
court centre in Darwin .
The Northern Territory News had a squash
team which included
Jim and sports editor Dennis Booth. Booth said Jim was fiercely competitive and agile on
the court. When Booth was in Hong
Kong in the l960s
he had become interested in
ten pin bowling and holds
the distinction of having
coached three state teams in Australia -Tasmania, ACT
and the Northern Territory .
While introducing compositor
Bobby Wills to the game of squash ,
Jim hit him above
the eye with his racquet. Wills reeled back with blood pouring from his wound and Bowditch said, “ You are supposed to get out of the bloody
way .”
When Steven Bowditch was about 12 he joined the NT News team and rapidly became proficient . However, while he was learning to play the game , Booth beat him several times ,
a feat about which he would have cause to boast. A competition
was held at the squash courts
where Betty worked and Steven won
a month’s free playing time.
Steven
became so adept he won the NT Open
at l5 years of age and
represented Australia as a junior and men’s amateur squash player . He
went on to become
a prominent world
ranked player and
was inducted into the
NT Sports Hall
of Champions and listed as one of the
first 100 Aboriginal athletes
in the Aboriginal and Islander Sports Hall of
Fame ,the so- called Black
Diamonds.
In
l981 he was captain of the
Australian squash team , runners up in
the World Teams event and in that year he
won the World Individual Squash Championships in Sweden. In
l985 he won a second world title-the World Open Plate
in Egypt, beating
the dominant Jansher
Khan in the final . He was also twice runner up in the
North American Open -equivalent to
the American Squash World
title and won the
US Open .
Appointed
to the World Squash Council, he became
national coach of
Malaysia and Sweden. His squash career took him to 40
countries and he lived in eight different nations . While union player Gary Ella has been credited with
being the first Aboriginal to
captain an Australian team
in l983, Bowditch captained the Australian squash team
which came second in the
World Squash Championships in Stockholm , Sweden in
l981.
Also a top mini tour golfer, he won championships at private clubs
in Germany, USA and Australia. When
it came to
sporting activities, Steven had great application , which he
felt came from his mother .
He mentioned the
occasion when his
father brought home
an American basketball with coloured
panels. Steven , who had not played the game , took the basketball to nearby courts and
practised shooting goals from many angles
day after day . In
a short space of time he was
so good that he played in a
men’s A grade side and in 12
months was a referee.
Steven had a high regard for his
mother’s sporting capabilities. With the right opportunities and coaching , he believed she
could have been “ another Yvonne Goolagong. ” She had been at the
top in three sports in Darwin- squash, tennis and hockey . While claiming to have only
played “social tennis ”, Steven
said she was really very good. His mother had those Aboriginal qualities
which enabled her to just
keep on going no matter
what.
As a
consultant and business facilitator with wide
experience including time
with an American stockbroking firm ,
Steven Bowditch has played a
prominent part in Aboriginal
advancement . He was
manager of the Regional Aboriginal
Business Development , Department of
State and Regional Development in the
NSW government . Bowditch
designed and distributed more
than l700 copies
of the widely used
manual A Guide to Developing Aboriginal Business . Over the
years he has initiated and run
numerous business and cultural events .
While
based at Casino , NSW, from l995-l997
as Aboriginal Enterprise Development
Officer , he assisted 5000
aboriginal individual and community clients with their ideas , facilitating the establishment of more than
30 businesses. In
2001 he coordinated a
trade familiarisation visit to a
major European fair in Milan,
Italy.
THE TIGHT DARWIN MILLIONAIRE
While discussing his childhood , Steven Bowditch told how the attitude of his father and Darwin millionaire
Mick Paspalis had influenced
his own attitude to money . He said his father had regarded rich
people as “evil” . As
a youngster , Steven had been a paperboy
in the Fannie Bay area delivering
papers to the “richest and the
poorest” .
One
of the battlers on the run had been Mrs
Hilda Muir, one of the Stolen
Generation , with “ umpteen kids ”.
She always gave him a big tip. The richest household
which Steven deliver papers
to was that of
Mick Paspalis.
When Steve called
there to collect fortnight’s paper money , he hoped that it was Mrs
Paspalis or one of her daughters who payed the account because they
would include a generous tip, especially at Christmas.
However,
if Mick settled the account he
would slowly count out the exact
amount . Sometimes there would be
a few pence left from counting out the money ,
but Mick would smile , and put it back in his pocket. These experiences , coupled with his father’s attitude to the
rich , shaped Steven’s personal philosophy in his younger days. This attitude to money had limited Steven’s
“wealth creation” potential ,
but shaped his sense of right.
