By David Nagel
Lewis Rankin considers himself one of the lucky ones…a child sports nut who has lived out his boyhood dream of playing community sport for his beloved local club on every weekend possible.
Rankin is a cricket and football tragic, a senior premiership player in both sports for his beloved Inverloch Cricket Club – and Inverloch-Kongwak Football Club.
And he excels at what he does, being the current A Grade captain of the cricket club and a two-time member of the West Gippsland Football Netball Competition (WGFNC) Team of the Year.
He has represented his league in both sports, been runner-up in a league best and fairest award and has such a passion for sport that he made it his own career – studying Physical Education in Ballarat before returning to ply his trade in his current role as a teacher at the Inverloch Primary School.
And just one other thing about Lewis Rankin…he has achieved all this despite being born with a limb deficiency that has resulted in him having no right arm below the elbow!
“I don’t know the medical diagnosis but it’s a limb deficiency of some sort, I’ve got two fingers below my right elbow, but we never really looked into it and just got on with things,” Rankin explained.
“Mum was pretty hell bent on making sure I never felt sorry for myself and just learned to live with it. Little things like tying shoelaces, you need to do things like that for the rest of your life so just get on with it and make it happen.
“You just learn to adapt as things confront you…and it’s normal for me, I don’t know any different.”
Rankin, who turned 29 on August 8, was originally from Benalla, moving to Inverloch when he was five with his mum Chris, dad Steve, brother Will and sister Kate.
Dad Steve passed away when Lewis was seven; leaving Chris to raise her three children and build a family bond that still burns strong today.
“Mum did a great job of raising us kids and we’re still a very tight-knit family, with aunties, uncles and grandparents (Stuart and Joan Scott) who all live around the Inverloch and Kongwak area,” Rankin said.
“Growing up I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, and I think they’ve missed maybe one or two games of sport in my life.
“Mum, my brother and sister, my grandparents, they’ve all played a huge role in my sporting career and my life in general. Gramps was a beef and dairy farmer for years and still plods around on the farm in Inverloch.”
Lewis attended the same Inverloch Primary School that he teaches at today, now teaching alongside his fiancée Jordy, who also works at the school.
He then went to Newhaven College, before it became the huge school it is today, before his four years of University studies in Ballarat.
But the one constant, well it has always been sport.
“I’m mad about sport, I live and breath sport, everything in my primary and secondary school life revolved around sport,” Rankin explained.
“I played as many sports as I possibly could. Footy in winter, tennis and then cricket in summer, and even under-water hockey at one stage as well.
“I played netball in the under 13s for Inverloch, to protect my arm, then started playing footy in the fourths and then progressed through the ranks from there. I played twos for a year or so and then played my first game in the seniors at 18.
“I was a bloke who loved his cricket so didn’t do a footy pre-season…back then I had to bide my time and work my way back into the seniors a few games into the season.”
In his third year of studies in Ballarat, 2013, Rankin played a year with his Uni mates at the Hepburn Football Club, winning the club’s reserves best and fairest award and finishing runner-up in the Central Highlands league medal.
It was also the coldest year of his football career, a time that quickly turned into a hot spell of premiership success in the years ahead.
After years of coming close, Rankin opened the bowling in Inverloch’s 2014/15 A Grade premiership success, before a similar pattern followed his football career.
The Sea Eagles had hovered around the mid-rungs of the ladder for many years before playing in the 2016 Alberton Football Netball League grand final against Fish Creek.
Inverloch would lose that grand final by 17 points, but a resolve and newly-built culture would lead the club to the ultimate success a year later…the first of the WGFNC.
“We had a core group of players, my age group and a couple of years older than me, players like Dylan Clark and Clint McCaughan, but we were still finding our way and growing up a bit I think through those 2015 and ’16 years,” Rankin said.
“Then we added some quality talent from Melbourne, Toby Mahoney, Danny Reid and those types of guys who are still playing now.
“We added those guys to our Inverloch group and 2017 was fantastic, especially after losing the grand final to Fish Creek in 2016, which we were really close to winning.
“Souma (Coach Ben Soumilas) had done a great job of building the culture of our club and that was probably the first thing he did. We were always likely to win games but never fully committed to preparing ourselves well.
“He came in and changed the culture a lot, from fourths, through netball, making it a community club and making sure we commit to each other and play in a good respectful manner.
“We brought in a no-idiot policy, so everyone was a good person first and then sports person second. He changed the way we thought about our footy and made sure we used the talent we had, and used it properly, and tried to build something sustainable.
“Then 2017 was brilliant, a really strong year, we fought off Cora Lynn in the second semi-final at Nar Nar Goon and we were prepared for anything on grand final day.
“It was really cool to share it with those Melbourne players that had come in, but also with a really strong core of local players as well. There were probably 15 of us that had grown up playing junior footy at Inverloch…that was an amazing day for everyone at the club.”
Like many, Rankin rates the influence that Soumilas has had on the club as the prime reason why the Sea Eagles have tasted success and remain in contention for future honours.
“He’s a brilliant man, a different unit the way he speaks to individuals and groups and people just gravitate to every word he says,” Rankin explained.
“He’s a school teacher as well, so he explains things in detail, but he’s definitely not overbearing with that sort of stuff and doesn’t over complicate things.
“The way he coaches us is a free and really open way of coaching. The work that he did early with us means we now know what’s inside his head and what he expects from us and what we need to deliver.
“He puts a lot of faith into our senior group. A lot of us are between 29 and 32 now so he lets us do a lot of the coaching at training and even out on the ground. He drafts up the master plan and just makes sure we follow it.
“He’s changed our club absolutely for the better, and everyone at Inverloch would attest to that.
“He makes sure we’re good people first, look after our families, we’re not idiots and contribute to the club and be good people. He’s awesome, and puts in so much work behind the scenes to make us better.
“He used to send us messages at 1am on the morning of a game, that’s how passionate he is about his football.”
Rankin is also passionate about his football and does admit he sometimes thinks about what a football career might look like if he did have the use of both arms. But there’s also the realisation that the inner drive and determination that has served him so well, might be diminished if he obtained that physical advantage.
“True, that inner drive might be lost if things were different and you can’t put a figure on how much that plays a part in a footballers make up,” Rankin said.
“But there are times when you do wish you had two arms and the full physical ability of others, and wonder what could have been and where I could have gone with my sport, or different careers.
“I wanted to be a paramedic but thought that would be impossible after seeing what those people do with two arms.
“I don’t let it consume me but occasionally I do think about how far I could have gone with my football, a higher level, I sometimes wonder that.”
Rankin offsets his challenges by working hard on his strengths, like his ability to run that saw him represent his country as an 18-year-old at the Australasia Youth Paralympic Games at Aami Park in Melbourne.
Rankin ran in the 400, 800 and 1500-metre events, and come away from the event with one gold medal and two silver.
But the humble medallist likes to quickly put things into perspective.
“It’s definitely not as impressive as the title makes it sound,” Rankin says with a chuckle.
“Running has always come naturally to me and is probably my greatest strength, even though I’ve never really worked on it that much. I like to think I can read the play pretty well and I just try to use that running ability to get me in the right spots.
“As I’ve got older I’ve tried to build up my strength, but being active 12 months of the year, with footy and cricket, keeps me pretty fit.”
Rankin has also had to overcome some challenges with his technique after older brother Will taught him to kick with his right foot…not a good idea when you’re guiding with your left hand.
“Will had a huge impact on me playing sport, he’s six years older than me so he always had the bat, and I was always bowling, or we would kick the footy in the backyard,” he said.
“My kicking skills were not great kicking right foot, especially on windy days, dropping the footy from your left side was not ideal. I taught myself to kick left foot and I’m now at the point where I can kick equally as poorly with both feet,” he jokes.
And what reaction as he received from a wide range of people; from his primary school students right through to his senior competitors from other clubs, when they see his right arm?
“A lot of my students are used to it now so don’t see it any differently, but there are kids who look and stare a bit but that’s ok,” he said.
“I just tell them a shark or a crocodile bit it off and that brings a laugh and breaks the ice.
“And I’ve had two experiences playing senior football where things have probably gone too far.
“The first time I was 18, and kept it to myself. I mentioned it after the game to my brother, who was still playing at the time, and he and the club were furious and pretty annoyed that they didn’t find out while we were playing.
“And I copped it again one day in the first year of the new league (WGFNC), but I was a bit more mature by then and I just took it on the chin and gave them a mouthful about what type of people they are, giving someone stick about something like that.
“Growing up, there was nothing, everyone was quite accepting of me and even went the other way and mentioned how good it was what I was doing.”
Rankin knows Phillip Island coach Beau Vernon quite well, after his sister Kate went to school with Vernon at Newhaven College.
Rankin thinks it’s a bit of a stretch to compare his limb deficiency to Vernon’s challenges, after he became a quadriplegic after a sporting accident in 2012.
“It was terrible what happened to Beau, and we’re at a stage now where we probably take the mickey out of each other to be honest,” Rankin said.
“We both have fun with it and I like to take the piss out myself all the time, I think it’s important that we make the most out of life and have fun with it along the way.
“I see myself as someone who is still pretty able, and one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have much wrong with them.
“I definitely don’t see myself as having the day-to-day challenges that Beau will have through his life. I totally admire what he does.”
And Rankin said his Sea Eagles are in a really good space as they prepare for whatever might be thrown at them over the coming weeks.
“We’re flying, going really well, even in lockdown we’ve been sharing with each other what we’re doing and we’re still very committed to making sure that when we come back we’re firing and ready to go because we know Phillip Island, Tooradin, and everyone else in the top six will be doing the same thing,” he said.
“We’re pretty excited that when, or if, we get back that we’re a good chance of having a really good crack at it this year.
“We’ve got a great group around us, and we’re developing a crop of young blokes coming through that are 18, 19 and 20. I coached a lot of these kids in the fourths for three years a while back, and hopefully we can win a flag this year and with them over the coming years.
“With Covid it’s been pretty tough to keep momentum, but we’ve never waivered in our mindset, we’re happy to play anytime, anywhere, even if it came down to one game to decide a winner.”
So does Lewis Rankin think he has achieved more than most in his sporting career?
“I don’t, but if you ask mum, my brother and sister, my grandparents, they absolutely pump up my tires about what I’ve achieved, but they’re very biased, especially my grandmother, she’s always saying I’ve played the best game of my life,” he said.
“Winning that flag in 2017 and having the family around, sharing those moments with them, and my teammates, was probably the coolest part of winning that flag.
“Mum’s very proud of what I do and how I don’t whinge about it.”
And how would he like to remembered when he one day hangs up the boots.
“Just as someone who was committed to their club, who has never been paid, never asked for anything and just loves his club and the people he plays with.”
