The Marathon Runner Reinventing Bowls

At the time, his focus was firmly fixed elsewhere — on endurance sport, marathon running and the relentless training required to chase an Olympic dream.

But when recurring lower back injuries brought that ambition to an end, Tim found himself charting a new path — this time in roles far kinder on the body.

“Always in the back of my mind I wanted to work in and around sports administration,” Tim says on the ClubLife Podcast in a new episode released today.

“If someone had said to me ‘you’re going to be working in lawn bowls’ I probably would’ve laughed back in the day because I never really thought I’d end up where I am at the moment.

“The thing that really attracted me [to Bowls NSW] was the level of reform that the sport had to go through… we were the last state sporting organisation to merge their men’s and women’s associations, so that for me was the piece that really interested me in the role in terms of the governance reforms that needed to be led.”

Tim joined Bowls NSW following stints in leadership roles at Qantas, Crown Resorts and the Indigenous Marathon Foundation — where he even trained Cathy Freeman to run a marathon. He began his working life as a graduate accountant at KPMG.

Alongside a strong focus on governance, Tim has begun a transformative process at Bowls NSW to attract younger participants while continuing to serve the sport’s core audience.

“Bowls is an incredible sport, I don’t think we’ve done a very good job at articulating just how good the sport is, it’s so strategic and it’s just so relevant to anybody… any gender can play, it’s not a strength-based sport, it’s so inclusive and you can play it until you’re 100 and we’ve got people that are over 100 playing our sport which is amazing,” says Tim on the ClubLife Podcast.

“We always talk about just making sure we find the balance between protecting the history and the tradition of our sport which is absolutely paramount and critical… but balancing that with the opportunity and the need for us to innovate is absolutely critical.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Tim discusses some of the challenges on the horizon for the state’s club industry and what he sees as the differentiation between the peak industry body in ClubsNSW and that of its affiliated associations such as Bowls NSW.

He also opens up on the loss of his sister Sophie following her battle with cancer and how her passing reshaped his outlook on life.

“Losing a sibling is horrendous, there’s probably no way of putting it any better than that… that gave me the ambition to do something really positive with my life,” says Tim.

Click on the link below to hear the full interview with Tim Rowe in Episode 22 of the ClubLIFE Podcast, which is also available via ClubLIFE.com.au, Apple, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts.

If you have a suggestion on who might make an interesting guest for a future ClubLIFE Podcast episode, get in touch with the team by emailing [email protected].