Family secrets and missing documents: Former NBL player's search for answers over Indigenous heritage

Family secrets and missing documents. Former NBL player Stu Allan's quest to find out about his Indigenous heritage took him down a road that provoked anger at society and ultimately enabled everything to fall into place. Now he is giving his daughters the chance to grow up embracing their culture while helping young Indigenous people thrive.

STU Allan was 30 when he found out about his Indigenous heritage and only then did everything feel like it fell into place.

The Bond University director of netball and club sports, now 56, had an inkling of his background but it was only after digging deeper into his family’s past that he discovered his links to the Awabakal people in Lake Macquarie, NSW.

“It changes your perspective,” Allan said.

"I was late to my heritage like a lot of black fellas.

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“You like to think of yourself as an open minded person but it certainly puts a different point of view on things. For me it was more a matter of everything falling into place.

“What I try and do now is help kids at Bond with Indigenous heritage.

“I want the Indigenous kids who are looking at somewhere to know there is someone on the other side of the fence at Bond, somebody they can go to who embraces it.”

Allan played in the NBL from 1983 to 1988 for the Newcastle Falcons and has been involved in high performance sport ever since.

It was speculated by family members that they had Indigenous heritage but Allan said his grandmother, the source of the links, wasn’t forthcoming with information after coming from an era where it was safer to remain quiet.

"My nan is the source of the Indigenous heritage and she would let a couple of things slip," Allan said.

"I did some other digging but like a lot of Indigenous families the records basically disappear. It fell into place as my mum got older and discovered the lady she thought was her grandmother wasn't and that her mum had been moved sideways into a different family.

"We don't know whether she was stolen or relocated."

Allan said the fear society gave Indigenous members of the community at that time robbed him of learning about his background.

“That is one of the things that makes me angry,” Allan said.

“Those things denied me the opportunity to learn more about it.”

Allan said he was proud he and wife Lori had the chance to raise his daughters Maddie, 27, who spent three years playing in the WNBL for the Perth Lynx and Beth, 23, as Awakabal women.