RODNEY WULFF

6 feet 5 inches (194cm) Centre/Forward

1968 Olympic Games

On a wet March afternoon in 1971 the tall athletic young Aussie Rodney Wulff walked around the internal concourse of MacArthur Court in Eugene, Oregon USA (home of the Oregon Ducks Basketball team) where he had been a member of the basketball team for the last four years. Wulff was about to graduate from Oregon to take up an academic scholarship to Harvard in the Graduate School of Design. On his walk he was joined by the Oregon University Track and Field Athletics coach. The coach had several Australian Track stars on his successful squads over the years, enjoyed the Australian sense of humour and was winner of many NCAA Track and Field titles. As they walked he told Wulff of his intention to resign from coaching track and follow his dream of making a better running shoe that helped, not hurt his athletes. He was striving for the ultimate shoe! The coach did resign but it was not until 1972. His vision became a reality. Bill Bowerman and the company he co- founded to make the shoe was NIKE! Wulff states, “Bowerman was a truly inspirational man with a wonderful sense of humour”. The young Aussie would also follows his own dreams and achieve them. Rodney Wulff was born in Wagga Wagga, NSW on the 9th of October 1947. When he was ten years of age his family moved to Canberra. His father, Bill a RAAF serviceman who had been a Prisoner of War in the Second World War excelled in golf and rugby league before the War. Una, his mother was a field hockey player of some repute. Brother Gary played top grade rugby in Canberra and his sister Sandra represented the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) in basketball. Rodney represented the ACT in schoolboy rugby and basketball and was on teams that won NSW’s Schools Championships in both sports. Basketball became his main focus from 1960 when he attended Lyneham High School, which had its own gymnasium (not a common thing in those days). Max Landy the PE teacher at Lyneham was a top basketball coach and he greatly influenced Rodney’s development. Max was an outstanding junior coach and coached the 1964 NSW team (which included Wulff and other ACT players) to the Australian Under 18 title. In 1963, 1964 and 1965 Rodney was voted the outstanding centre at the U16 and U18 National Championships. During this same period his school teams and Club team won ACT championships In 1965 Rodney achieved a rare feat in basketball when he played on the Under 18 and Open NSW State basketball teams. He was a member of the starting five on both those teams. Both teams reached the Finals of the National Championships. In that same year he was the leading scorer for NSW which lost narrowly to Victoria in the Final of the Under 18 National Championships. He scored a finals record (to that time) of 27 points in that game and averaged 19.3 points per game throughout the tournament.

In 1967 Rodney was awarded a basketball scholarship to attend the University of Oregon in the USA. Oregon played in the then Pacific 8 Athletic Conference one of the toughest collegiate basketball competitions in the USA. The Conference included the powerhouse UCLA under legendary coach John Wooden. Rodney played on the Oregon Basketball Team (the “Ducks”) for four years and had a solid career. He graduated from Oregon University in 1971.