Luke Gillies

"Yarra continues to produce great people."

Some of Luke Gillies’ best moments at Yarra happened on the sports field. A passionate cricketer and footy player, Luke lapped up Saturday morning sport and being part of the footy and cricket teams.

“You win and you lose with your best mates. You celebrate and commiserate together and I loved that,” he says.

“One of my most memorable moments happened during a footy game against Assumption College. Yarra had been the easy beats for some time but one brilliant day we played Assumption on the oval at Yarra and I kicked four goals, including one from the boundary. That’s one of my best memories.”

Luke joined Yarra in Year 7 and remembers his dad tying his school tie at the start of every school term, so he could loop it over his head every morning.

“I’m now tying the ties for my kids. I liked the tie because it stood out and identified me as part of the Yarra community,” he says.

In his later years at Yarra, Luke focused on business-related subjects, such as accounting and economics, and he went on to study business at Swinburne University.

He now uses those skills to help run his family’s business – they own three Snooze franchises in the outer eastern suburbs.

Luke has maintained links with Yarra through the old boys footy club and he’s also maintained a focus on sport, fitness and health, eventually swapping footy for marathon running and Iron Man triathlons.

“My family, sport, physical and mental health and my job keep me balanced. Now I’m involved in my kids’ sports – I’ve coached their teams and drive them to games and I thoroughly enjoy that,” says Luke.

His approach to finding success in any walk of life is simple.

“You have to keep turning up. When we played football and didn’t kick a point, we kept turning up and eventually things turn around. You have to trust the process,” says Luke.

The mark Yarra made on him and the school motto are still meaningful to Luke, years after he graduated.

“You have to look out for opportunities and look for the next thing coming over the horizon. Don’t concentrate on the back catalogue too much!” he says.

“Yarra was a big part of my life – it was my community.”