Lynn McVie, CEO Skate Queensland

Alex Mednis & Nicholas Watkins, Australian Sports Professional Association
Lynn McVie, CEO Skate Queensland

Bonus content

Each CEO has bonus content available to ASPA members that is not found in the book. The philosophies below are sourced directly from the interview, however each interview contained so much great content we had to put together an excerpt. Note that the content of the interview differs than the philosophies.

Interview

Growing up, Lynn never thought she would work in sport. She loved maths at school and was sure she would be an accountant. 
 

You've been the CEO now of Skate QLD for and incredible 16 years. You must be particularly self-motivated to keep the energy going for that length.

I really believe in the sport. The 16 years that I've been with Skate Queensland, I have seen so many kids grow. They've got their license and they've got married, and then they've had kids.

And then their kids start to play sport, so it's just awesome. There are so many people that I've seen grow up and become really, really responsible young adults, and that's rewarding to me. Because of all the gloom and doom that's out there in this world now, kids are so easily led, and I believe that the sport helps them find their way to their future. 

And that's what keeps me motivated.
 

Where did your motivation originate?

I did platform diving growing up, and there's discipline in sport. It gives you a real self-motivation. In sport there is always a goal somewhere.  And if you’ve got those goals, whether it's two years or 20 years, you'll work towards it, and I think that helps with sport because you've got to be so self-disciplined. 

You can't go and have a burger on Friday and Saturday night, or go down to the pub for seven hours; you've got to want to work to that goal. And I think that helps a lot with sports.

Yes. Sport definitely shows people that they need to sacrifice some comfort in order to succeed.

Exactly. My daughter, when she was skating - she's not skating now of course because she's 23, but she only stopped when she was 19. She went to World's and that's all she ever wanted to do was go to World's. And she came 10th in the World.
 

Far out!

Yeah, and that was just amazing for her and she said, "Mom, I've done what I wanted to do. I'm not going to do it anymore because I've achieved it. I can't do any better." 
 

Fantastic. 

And she was progressing to high school so her goal was done. To watch her go through all that for so long and not go out with her friends, go to training every day, go down the coast to go to Runaway Bay and train down there for five hours - it was just amazing. And that taught her so much.
 

I can imagine that the reward enjoyed by both you and her and the coaches that would've been involved too, it's very much... even though it is at times an individual sport, there is such a strong team behind everyone.

She's still friends with them now. She still talks to her coach. And it's 17 years, 18 years. It's a friendship but it's a friendship for life.
 

On a similar note to coaches, how have parents changed over the last few years?

People just didn't want to be involved. They'd drop their kid off and it was like a babysitting service. And off they'd go, do you know what I mean, until it was time to pick their kids up. I always used to make a joke with one of the skating rinks that we should have a revolving driveway so they could drop the kids off and just keep going. No point in stopping. Do you know what I mean? Because it was true. Back then that's all they did; drop them off. You'd see people watching their kids train and there'd be two people. Two mothers or a mother and a father; that's it.
 

Why do you think that culture has shifted?

I think it's because they understand that they don't do a great benefit to their children and they need to be more involved. I think they understand that, "Oh, okay, this is serious now. This is not just ‘drop your kid off at the beach and watch them build sand castles’; this is a real sport and they could go quite a long way if they put in the hours." 
 

Is it a case of the sport evolving, or the parents?

It's a bit of both. I think parents now understand that they need to support their kids in what they do. I mean, there's too many things that can affect them to do things that aren't all great, like the drugs and the alcohol and all the rest of it. 

Now I think the parents understand that they've got to support their kids in what they want to do as far as sport goes. There are too many alternatives to sport right now, actually.
 

You're the only employee at Skate Queensland.

That's right.

How do you manage that stress, without necessarily having a team to decompress with?

Nine out of 10 times it's my husband, god bless him. But most of the time I try... Because my father was a big advocate of saying, "When you go in the front door, you're home, you're not at work, so you leave it all behind." I try not to talk about it at home but sometimes it does get impossible.
 

It's a great principle to live by, but when you've been there 16 years... You've shepherded that for a long time to be in the good state it's in. Is it hard sometimes to let go when you get home, because you obviously care about it so much?

Yeah, it is. Especially, because I've been working from home since March, and so it's there all the time at the moment. I'll get up in the morning and I'll check my phone and ...

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