Bill Lawry
Lawry was born in the Melbourne suburb of Thornbury. He was given the names William Morris after the early Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes. His father Alfred played amateur cricket until the age of 51. Bill never saw his father play, who was aged 47 when Bill was born. Aged nine, he played competitive cricket for the first time with the Thornbury Presbyterian Church team. He spent three years there, as well as playing for Preston Technical School. When he was twelve, he entered Melbourne's district competition playing for Northcote's fourth team, working his way up to the First XI by the age of sixteen. At the time, he was apprenticed as a plumber and attending Preston Technical College. Lawry was selected for Victoria's Second XI at the age of seventeen. He made a duck against the South Australians and did not see any further action for the Seconds for the rest of the summer of 1954–55. The following season, Lawry was recalled to the Seconds and scored 183 against South Australia.
Bill Willoughby
While Moses Malone (drafted into the American Basketball Association out of high school in 1974, prior to the 1976 ABA–NBA merger) and Darryl Dawkins enjoyed more successful professional careers, Willoughby had a career that was undistinguished. Nicknamed "Poodle", he was a journeyman who played for six different NBA teams in eight years, before his career ended with the New Jersey Nets in 1984, at the age of 26. Willoughby was tremendously athletic, having a 47-inch vertical leap. He had played center throughout his high school career, and was forced to play forward in the pros. Willoughby gained some brief fame in the 1981 NBA postseason while with the Houston Rockets by becoming one of the few players ever to block Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's "skyhook" at its apex.