Bill McCabe

In 1948 Bill McCabe began to play water polo with the Melbourne Club where he became an excellent goalkeeper, helping the team to dominate the Victorian competition during the 1950s. In 1952 McCabe played for the Victoria water polo team that finished as the runners-up in the State competition. He would continue to represent Victoria with the team winning five national titles (1953, 1955–56, 1958, 1960).

In 1956 McCabe was selected to play for Australia at their home Olympics in Melbourne. The team had little international experience so they played multiple practice matches ahead of the Melbourne Games. Australia lost all three of their group matches but did win a classification match against Singapore to finish in ninth place out of the ten teams that competed. McCabe was in line to appear at the 1960 Roma Olympics but suffered a head injury and did not take part. Nonetheless, he still travelled to Italy for the Olympics where he stayed with members of the Australian team.

After the Melbourne Olympics McCabe played Australian rules football for North Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL). He played in four matches in his VFL début season in 1957 and continued to play for the club until 1959.