Football
One of ten children, James left school at 15 in 1949 and played Australian rules football with the Healesville seconds. The team won the premiership and Wandin was awarded the Best and Fairest. He moved on to play with the seniors who won a premiership in 1951. He joined St Kilda Football Club in 1952, after a period of training with them at Junction Oval. He was the first Aboriginal footballer with St Kilda, playing centre half forward. Other Aboriginal players in the VFL at the time were Essendon's Norm McDonald and Melbourne's Eddie Jackson. He left St Kilda Football Club after just 17 games due to "homesickness" and what he later reflected as a lack of support.
In 2003 Wandin reflected on the racist taunts he faced during games in a report in The Age newspaper: "Opposition players would call you niggers and all that, the whole lot, Kooris and whatever week in, week out. Pretty rash things said, I can tell you. You had to just deal with it yourself, nothing like what Michael Long's got now going. You dealt with it, you just got on with the game."
He was called up for National Service in 1952.
After leaving St Kilda Football Club he took up a position of player coach in 1954 with the Healesville seniors and coached until 1961. He joined the Postmaster-General's Department and worked for 37 years, but continuing to coach football at Healesville and Apollo Bay.
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