Sports Hall of Fame - Narelle Gosstray

From short stop to pitcher and around the bases, to later taking up a post in the outfield, Gosstray’s mantra of always saying yes has had her reach the greatest of heights as an Australian representative baseball player.

“At club level, I was a short stop, third base and pitcher, and then on the Australian team I was picked as second base,” Gosstray said.

“It’s just those different skillsets you need at different levels. But I ended up loving it, working hard and owning second base after a few years.

“It was one of the first lessons I learnt playing baseball.

“When your coach says to you, ‘can you go out and play second base?’, and you have never played it before, the answer is always yes.

“It’s not so much whether your skills are appropriate, it’s your desire to play and willingness to go out of your comfort zone.”

Exceeding that comfort zone allowed Gosstray to build a career worthy for being inducted into the Shepparton Hall of Fame, something Gosstray said was the last thing she ever expected of herself.

“I probably didn’t even realise what it meant, but when I looked at the previous inductees, I was like ‘wow’, names like Mike Scandolera, Peg Curtis, Lee Naylor and Liz Taverner,” she said.

“People I’ve always admired, and it blew me away to think people would think I would fit in that same scenario.”

Growing up in Shepparton, Gosstray’s life revolved around sport.

She took that commitment seriously, playing everything from basketball to softball and volleyball to badminton.

But it wasn’t until Gosstray was 25 and living in Melbourne where she was introduced to the idea of playing baseball.

“I was literally walking past a baseball field where there was a co-ed team out there playing and I stopped and watched,” Gosstray said.

“The umpire called over and said, ‘hey, why aren’t you playing?’, and I shrugged my shoulder and said, ‘no-one’s asked me’.

“He came over between innings and told me to come down to trainings and they’ll get me in a team.

“That was it. It was a little bit of luck and I just happened to live near the field, so I went to play for Cheltenham.”

It wasn’t that Gosstray didn’t know baseball — she loved it.

There just weren’t the opportunities to play it growing up in Shepparton.

But her skills in softball and as an athlete made the transition into the sport easier.

“I loved the game and I grew up with my brothers and dad playing cricket in the backyard, so catching and throwing were massive for me,” she said.

“Back then girls didn’t play cricket, so I think that was what led me to softball first.

“The training and quality of coaching I had in Shepparton was excellent, and I had good fundamental baseball skills.”

From there Gosstray began to make her mark and was selected in the Victorian team in Australia's first national competition before getting the call up to the Australian team a year later.

You would need a bigger book to delve into the stories Gosstray has of her time travelling with the Australian team, including a stay at a Canadian youth hostel where there was seven to a bathroom and a murder occurred on its roof.

At the same time, Gosstray and her teammates were vying for a spot in a tournament gold medal game.

“We tied with a team to get into that game; from top to bottom, wins and losses, runs for and against, innings played, there was no way to separate us,” she said.

“So, the only choice was to flip a coin or go somewhere else and play at 1am in the morning, so we chose the 1am.

“We stopped halfway there and got Mars Bars and cheeseburgers to keep us going.

“Halfway through the game the lights went out.

“We finished the game at 3am, but thankfully won, then had to be back at the Toronto Skydome at 7am to play the final.

“I don’t even remember who won the final or not, because it was such a huge thing just getting there.”

The professionalism within the Australian team and its governing body has changed over the years, Gosstray says, but there is still a way to go with baseball considered a minor sport outside the United States, Canada and Japan.

“We’ve got a long way compared to other sports in Australia,” she said.

“But we hold our own and are growing and providing options to girls to do what they love and play a sport they are interested in.”

After retiring from the national team in her 30s, coaching and administration was a natural progression for Gosstray.

“It’s hard to play elite sport the older you get and I would have loved to have more opportunities playing internationally on the field,” she said.

“But that started to open up the opportunities off the field.

“From the moment I was asked to start coaching, I fell in love with it.

“And because I was still playing at a state and club level, it actually improved my playing for a while, because when you're demonstrating it to someone else it refines your own skills.”

Gosstray went on to coach the Australian junior national women’s team in 2010 and 2011 before becoming an assistant coach for the senior national women’s team in 2014.

“But I realised in the senior team that coaching at grassroots level was really where my passion lay,” Gosstray said.

“I came full circle, starting back with juniors, but not just that, coaching adults who hadn’t played before.

“Teaching them the skills, you can have this huge learning curve, where elite it's more minute differences.

“I love to see the huge jump in skill levels.”

As for what advice she would give to aspiring female athletes across the Shepparton region, Gosstray encouraged them to pursue any sport they had their hearts set on.

“We just need to shift how the world sees and thinks about gender,” she said.

“It’s still there, the unconscious bias, but it’s not the reality; if you want to play softball, play softball, if you want to play baseball, play baseball or if you want to play both, play both.

“Don’t let anyone else hold you back.

“And what you achieve is purely up to you and how much you’re prepared to work to get to that point.”

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