Joyce Lester

Lester was born on 22 March 1958 in the Queensland state capital of Brisbane as the youngest of four children. Her mother was a housewife and her father was a firefighter and later a fire brigade officer. She often played softball in the backyard with her sister at home, using a net that her father had built. She attended Geebung State School and Wavell State High School, where she excelled in sport, especially high school softball.[2][3]

After finishing high school, she attended the North Brisbane College of Advanced Education (now part of the Queensland University of Technology), where she graduated with a Diploma of Teaching and a Bachelor of Education. She later studied for and received a graduate certificate in linguistics from the University of Southern Queensland.[2] She taught physical education full-time during her Australian softball playing career, and as of 2017, she is the Director of International Education at Trinity Anglican School.[4][5]

Since 1996 she has lived in Cairns with her husband, Chris Wighton, a singer, songwriter and youth worker. They had met in primary school and had a brief relationship after she left high school. They later re-connected in 1996, after he had split up with his ex-wife.[2][6]

Lester joined the under-16's Queensland softball team as a replacement catcher, after her predecessor had broken her thumb; she had never played in this position before.[2] She was a member of the open Queensland team from 1975 to 1996, captaining it from 1983 onwards.[7][8] She was part of eight teams that won the Gilleys Shield, seven of which she captained. She was also a member of her club team, the Rebels, which won the national club championships in 1984, 1986 and 1987, and was named Most Valuable Player there in 1990.[8]

She was first selected for the Australia women's national softball team in 1977 and became its captain in 1985. As a catcher and outfielder, she represented her country at 235 international games and five ISF Women's World Championships.[8][9] At the 1986 world championships in Auckland, she achieved a batting average of .313 and a perfect fielding average of 1000, leading her to be named into the World All Star team. She was once again selected for the all-stars in 1989 after the Intercontinental Cup in Italy. She retired from international competition after the national team's bronze medal win at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.[8]

In 1996 she signed up with Sagawa, a Japanese softball club near Kyoto, the first time she had played the game professionally.[4][8] She coached the game in Japan from 2000 to 2004, and was the Far North Queensland softball coach for the Queensland Academy of Sport from 1998 to 2008.[2][8]

She has served on the International Softball Federation Athletes Commission and has been the Australian players' representative at the International Softball Congress three times.[8] She was a softball commentator at the 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens, and 2008 Beijing Olympics.[2][3][8][10] She has advocated for greater funding and resources for women's sport, and has suggested that mothers should take their children to see women playing sport more often.[2][8]

Lester was inducted into both the Australian and Queensland softball halls of fame in 1996.[2] In 2000, she received a Medal of the Order of Australia and an Australian Sports Medal, and was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.[1][8][11] She was inducted into the World Softball Hall of Fame in 2001.[9] The Joyce Lester Shield, Softball Australia's under-23 women's championship, is named after her.[8]