Wayne Reid

Wayne Vivian Reid OBE (born 12 January 1938) is a former tennis player, and sports administrator who was president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA), the Melbourne Football Club, the Asian Tennis Circuit, the Confederation of Australian Sport, the International Assembly of National Confederations of Sports and was a founding director of the Australian Institute of Sport.

Early life

Reid was born in Melbourne, Victoria, on 12 January 1938.^[1] Reid was educated at Wesley College in Melbourne.^[2] While at Wesley, Reid won the Victorian Schoolboys singles and doubles tennis championships.^[1]

Tennis

Player

Reid was right-handed player,^[3] who played his whole career as an amateur. Reid's most notable display as a player came when he defeated tennis legend, Rod Laver, at the South Australian Open in 1960.^[4] Reid played in the Australian Open five times, in 1958, 1959, 1961, 1965 and 1967; his best performance was reaching the third round in 1961, when he was seeded ninth.^[1] That year he also entered the doubles with Christian Kuhnke; they reached the semi finals before being defeated by the eventual champions, Laver and Bob Mark.^[5] He traveled overseas only twice in his playing career,^[4] both times to play at Wimbledon. His reached the second round in both 1958 and 1962, losing to the eventual runner-up, Martin Mulligan, in the latter.^[1] While he was in Europe in 1958 to play at Wimbledon he also played in Spain, at the Torneo Godó, where he was knocked out in the close match in third round by the French Open and eventual champion, Sven Davidson.^[1] Reid however was focused on his business career and retired from championship tennis shortly after his 22nd birthday.^[4] Reid did, however, play in two more Australian Opens after his retirement.

Administrator

Reid became president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA) in 1969,^[6] at the age of just 31. Due to his youth Reid was able to bridge the generational gap between the officials and the players, which was considered especially important at the time, as 1969 was the first year of Open tennis.^[4] He successfully negotiated the transition from amateur to professional tennis and has been praised for his forward and progressive thinking, an example of which was the introduction of sponsorship to Australian tennis.^[4] His tenure as president is considered to be successful; he founded the Australian Davis Cup Tennis Foundation and the Asian Tennis Circuit, of which he was the inaugural chairman, and left the LTAA $367,000 better off than when he took on the presidency.^[4] Reid resigned as president in 1977.^[6]

Australian rules football

Having only been elected to the Board of the Melbourne Football Club in October 1978, Reid was a surprise selection to replace the retiring John Mitchell as president of the club in November.^[7] One of the first actions of Reid's new Board was to sack coach Dennis Jones, who had been in the position for only a year.^[8] He had negotiated for Ron Barassi to coach at the end of his contract next year and appointed Carl Ditterich as the interim captain-coach for one year to replace Jones. Reid held the position of president for two years,^[4] Reid however before leaving completed the negotiations with the MCC for Melbourne hero Barassi to return, and Appointed Dick Seddon as General Manager, received the MCC President Sir Bernard Callinan who became a good friend of Reid`s agreement to appoint Billy Sneddon as President and Reid along with Seddon and Barassi raised $700,000 to secure the MFC1s financial future.m until he resigned at the end of the 1980 season and Billy Snedden took over the presidency.

Reid was approached by five clubs to contest the 1988 election for president of the Victorian Football League, but Reid decided against running because of a planned overseas business commitment and after learning that Allen Aylett, who became president, and Hawthorns Ryan were both intending to run.^[4]

Further presidencies

He was also the inaugural president of the [[Confederation of Australian Sport] with over 100 sports as members ], a position he held for eight years.^[4] Reid was the driving force in convincing Prime Minister Fraser that Australian sport needed substantially more financial support if Australian sport was to establish a reputation as a sporting capital of the world. In March 1981 he was elected president of the International Assembly of National Confederations of Sports, a position he also held for eight years with Prince Phillip as the inaugural meeting chairman . and 96 countries as members ^[9] Reid was also a founding director of the Australian Institute of Sport and was a member of the Australian Federal Government Sports Advisory Council.^[4]

At the age of 26 Reid became CEO of the G H Reid group of Road Construction, Quarrying. Ready Mix Concrete and asphalt companies employing 600 people. Two years later the company was taken over by Pioneer Concrete Ltd and Reid became a professional director of 36 companies including; H H Webb (Funeral Requisites), Nabisco and Lifesavers, Nicholas Kiwi (worldwide boot polish and aspirin company),George's of Collins Street, Melbourne, Alfred Lawrence Essences, Jarden Morgan Europe (executive director responsible for investment banking, Air Europe's ( UK's second largest travel company with 32 Boeing's) City State (large building and construction group).

Awards and other positions held

President of the Moreland Tennis Club ; Committee of the Royal South Yarra Tennis Club; President of Tennis Australia ; President of The Melbourne Football Club; Director of the Melbourne Moomba Festival; Chairman of the Kooyong Association for the Blind; Vice President of the Association for the Blind; President of the Asian Tennis President Federation; President of the Asian Pacific Confederations of Sport; Chairman of the Davis Cup Nations Committee; Vice President of the International Tennis Federation; Sergeant of the Wesley College Cadet Corp; President of the Confederation of Australian Sport; Member of the Federal Government's Sports Advisory Council; Director of the Australian Institute of Sport; President of the International Assembly of National Confederations of Sport (over 100 countries. Awarded the Sport Australia Medal.

Honours

Reid was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his service to tennis administration in 1977 and inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1989.^[4] He was also made a life member of Tennis Australia.^[6] The Wayne Reid Cup is named after Reid and is awarded for a five-day Australian under-16s event, held annually in Perth in the lead up to the Hopman Cup event.^[10]

References