Rowing stalwart posthumously honoured

January 26, 2025 BY

Legacy: A Wendouree-Ballarat Rowing Club boat was christened in Eric Waller's name in November 2022. Photo: FILE

FOR his service to rowing, the late Eric Waller has been awarded a posthumous Medal of the Order of Australia.

A stalwart of the rowing community in Ballarat, and across the country, Mr Waller became a member of the Wendouree-Ballarat Rowing Club in 1957 and went onto be the club captain for 20 years, and the president for 30 years.

With Rowing Ballarat, formerly the Ballarat Rowing Association, he served as president from 1984 to 2009 and was a member until 2023.

He also was a life member of Rowing Victoria, contributing to the group as vice-president for 13 years, and a board member for 16 years. He received many RV awards.

Rowing Australia named Mr Waller the sport’s national Volunteer of the Year in 2014, and in the same year, he became the Victorian Olympic Council’s Julius Patching Volunteer of the Year.

In 2012, he was inducted into the Ballarat Sports Hall of Fame at the Ballarat Sports Museum, in 2000 he received an Australian Sports Medal, in 1999 he was presented with the Victorian Oarsmen and Women’s Association’s Tom Rodda Award, and in 1990 he won the Ballarat Sportsmen’s Club’s Mackenzie Award for administration.

Mr Waller served the Victorian Country Rowing Association as president, and for a time was the Ballarat Public Schools Regatta course manager and a Lake Wendouree Aquatic Association committee member.

He was a Field of Play Manager and coordinated many Victorian regattas.

Mr Waller died in June of 2023 aged 82.