Ma¯ori sports stars glitter globally
From a US Golf Open champion to an Olympic Games champion and a European football trophy winner, Ma¯ori have made their mark on the global sporting stage.
Michael Campbell joined Sir Bob Charles as New Zealand golf’s only men’s major tournament champion when he won the US Open in 2005, beating the great Tiger Woods by four shots.
Campbell, from Nga¯ti Ruanui and Nga¯ Rauru, backed up in 2005 by winning the $1.8 million World Match Play Championships title to cap a golden year of golf.
Kayaker Lisa Carrington, who hails from hope, is a double Olympic champion in the K1 200 class after winning her first gold medal in London in 2012 and securing another at Rio four years later.
Wynton Rufer, New Zealand’s most acclaimed footballer, won German Bundesliga and Cup titles during a stellar career in Europe. He scored in Werder Bremen’s 1992 European Cup Winners’ Cup final against a Monaco team coached by current Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.
Rufer’s father is Swiss and his mother has Nga¯ti Porou heritage.
He played for the All Whites in the 1982 World Cup finals, was voted Oceania’s player of the century.
The All Whites’ current captain, West Ham United premier league defender Winston Reid, has Tainui and Te Rarawa blood. He moved to Denmark with his mother and stepfather at the age of 10 and began his career there before joining West Ham after scoring for the All Whites at the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
Reid was one of four Ma¯ori in that All Whites squad - alongside Rory Fallon (Nga¯ti Porou), Jeremy Christie, who hails from Te Tai Tokerau, and Leo Bertos, a Wellingtonian with a Greek dad and a Ma¯ori mum.
Gifted Ma¯ori athletes have abounded in most codes - think double New Zealand rugby union and rugby league international George Nepia - and 1966 Commonwealth Games heavyweight boxing champion Bill Kini.
John (Jack) Hoani Macdonald - part of a remarkable Marlborough sporting dynasty - was, arguably, one of the greatest all-round Ma¯ori athletes.
Macdonald, from the Rangita¯ne iwi, was an Empire Games rowing gold medallist in the fours and a silver medallist in the eights in 1930 and was New Zealand’s flagbearer at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles where his rowing eight finished fourth.
As well as an Olympic oarsman, Macdonald played representative rugby for Marlborough, won the Ranfurly Shield in 1927 with Manawhenua and toured Australia, Europe and Canada with the Ma¯ori All Blacks in 1926-27 as a 20-year-old and made five tours to Australia.
Macdonald’s Ma¯ori Sports Hall of Fame biography stated he famously selected for both sides for the All Blacks’ 1929 fixture with New Zealand Ma¯ori, but decided to stand down.
He played two seasons of professional rugby league in England for the Huddersfield and Keighley clubs and represented the Dominions XIII against Great Britain and France.
Later, Macdonald captained the New Zealand Services tennis team at Wimbledon, was reputed to have beaten Kiwi billiards star Clark McConachy as well as dabbling in amateur boxing.
His nephew, John Macdonald, captained the New Zealand men’s basketball team to a maiden series win over Australia in 1978 and great nephew Leon MacDonald played 46 tests for the All Blacks. RUGBY LEAGUE Ma¯ori have been in prominent in rugby league as they have been in the 15-man union code.
Brothers Dick and Billy Wynard were part of the first New Zealand rugby league touring team - the 1907-08 All Golds.
Albert pai Asher, a 1903 All Black, led a NZ Ma¯ori team to Australia in 1908 in one of the most celebrated stories in New Zealand sport.
Asher, himself, became a Kiwi in 1910 and many Ma¯ori have since proudly sported the black jersey with its distinctive white V.
The New Zealand Rugby League Team of the Century - selected in 2008 - included four Ma¯ori - wing Phillip Orchard, centre Roger Bailey and modern day marvels Stacey Jones (scrum half) and Ruben Wiki (prop).
Jones’ grandfather, Maunga Emery, was a fearsome frontrower in the Kiwis side that led the world in the early 1960s and the Ma¯ori roll of honour includes cousins Kevin and Howie Tamati, Tawera Nikau, Stephen Kearney (the current Warriors) coach, Hugh McGahan (a former world player of the year), Dean Bell, brothers Henry and Robbie Paul and Benji Marshall, an influential figure in the Kiwis’ 2008 Rugby League World Cup final victory.
The current Kiwis coach (David Kidwell) and his predecessor (Kearney) are Ma¯ori as is Adam Blair, who will lead the Kiwis at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. SOFTBALL The Black Sox - one of New Zealand’s most successful sports teams with seven men’s world championship titles - have long had strong Ma¯ori links.
Four Ma¯ori men - Jarrad Martin, Thomas Makea, Nathan Nukunuku and Brad Rona - have four world series gold medals.
Martin (2004) and Nukunuku (2017) have captained the Black Sox to world crowns.
Makea is ranked alongside fourtime world champ Mark Sorenson as New Zealand’s greatest male softballer.
Ma¯ori have also made their mark on the mound - with Owen Walford, Chubb Tangaroa, Marty Grant and Jimmy Wana among New Zealand’s greatest pitchers.
The Ma¯ori influence remains today with three Enoka brothers - Ben, Thomas and Campbell - in the Black Sox.
Two of the biggest stars in women softball are Ma¯ori - Rhonda Hira, the infielder and highaverage hitter universally ranked the best player in White Sox history - and longtime pitcher Gina Weber, who captained her country at the 2000 Olympic Games.
Naomi Shaw, affiliated to an East Coast iwi, captained New Zealand to their only world women’s title in Taiwan in 1982 and later became White Sox coach.
Other Ma¯ori to captain the White Sox at world championships included Nardi Clark, Fiona Timu, Charlene Pouaka and Kiri Shaw. NETBALL Waimarama Taumaunu, a world champion in 1987 who later became Silver Ferns coach, is arguably New Zealand’s most famous netballer. Taumaunu - rated one of the world’s best defensive players - captained the Ferns from 1989 to 1991.
The Ferns’ first two captains were Ma¯ori.
Taranaki’s Margaret Matangi had the honour of leading the first national team in 1938, but played only one test, against Australia, with war cutting short her career.
East Coaster June Waititi (later Mariu) captained the next New Zealand team in 1960 and was also a New Zealand softball and indoor basketball representative.
No-one could top Taini Jamison’s 70-year contribution to New Zealand netball.
She played on and coached Rotorua representative teams and became the national team’s coach.
Jamison coached the Silver Ferns to the 1967 world title - and a place in the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame.
She remains New Zealand netball’s most successful coach with 18 victories in 20 tests between 1967 and 1971.
Jamison, Matangi and Taumaunu are all members of the Ma¯ori Sports Hall of Fame. GOLF Michael Campbell - who won more than $4.5 million on the PGA Tour - remains New Zealand’s foremost Ma¯ori golfer. Campbell and Philip Tataurangi were part of New Zealand’s winning Eisenhower Cup team at the world amateur golf teams championships in Canada in 1992. BASKETBALL Northlander Pero Cameron - the only non-NBA player on the tournament all-star team when the New Zealand Tall Blacks finished fourth at the 2002 world basketball championships - became the first New Zealander inducted in world basketball’s Hall of Fame.
Other prominent Ma¯ori hoopsters include New Zealand Sports Hall of Famer Stan Hill - who father, Tiny, was an All Blacks forward and Ma¯ori All Black captain.
Hill and his younger brother, John, were part of the first New Zealand team to beat Australia in a series - 1978 - when the Kiwis were captained by Ma¯ori guard John Macdonald (now a District Court judge).
Hawke’s Bay’s Paul Henare, a former Tall Blacks guard, is now New Zealand’s most prominent basketball coach, at the helm of the Tall Blacks and the New Zealand Breakers NBL team.
Kennedy Kereama has coached the Tall Ferns national women’s team since 2010. BOXING Bill Kini was another multitalented Maori Osportsman¯ who won the 1966 Commonwealth Games heavyweight gold medal in Kingston, Jamaica after collecting silver four years earlier in Perth.
Kini, a Southlander by birth, was a fine rugby player who won four Gallaher Shield Auckland club titles with Otahuhu, alongside All Blacks Mac Herewini and Waka Nathan.
After settling in Northland, he served as masseur for the Northland rugby team for 11 years.
Northlander Herbert Augustus Slade famously fought John L Sullivan for the world heavyweight boxing title in 1883, but was knocked out in the third round.
The Ngapuhi man, who settled in Utah after marrying a Mormon, was inducted into the Maori Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 with Maori Sports Awards executive director Dave Garrett telling the New Zealand Herald that Slade was being honoured as the country’s first widely advertised sports figure and the first nonwhite to fight for the title. HOCKEY Two New Zealand hockey internationals are in the Ma¯ori Sports Hall of Fame - Hawke’s Bay stalwart Margaret Hiha and Wairarapa’s Elva Marama Enoka (Love).
Hiha was a protege of legendary Hawke’s Bay coach Tom Turbitt and later became a successful provincial coach in her own right while Love managed New Zealand women’s teams.
The Black Sticks have had a sprinkling of Ma¯ori players since. TENNIS Ruia Morrison-Davy - the first New Zealand female to play at Wimbledon - still ranks among New Zealand’s finest women’s tennis players.
At her peak, she was ranked ninth in the world and made the Wimbledon fourth round in 1957 after a public appeal, launched by Auckland tennis official John Waititi, raised £2000 to get her to London.
She competed in all the major Grand Slam tennis tournaments, captained two New Zealand Federation Cup teams and won 13 national titles.
Another public appeal was launched to send Morrison - with Te Arawa and Ngati Tuwharetoa affiliations - to Wimbledon in 1962, but her Ma¯ori Sports Hall of Fame citation said the trained teacher turned the trip down, preferring to donate the money to the Ma¯ori Education Board because its work was more important. SKIING Four-time Winter Olympian Simon Wi Rutene was once New Zealand’s best known skiier outside Olympic silver medallist Annalise Coberger.
Wi Rutene, originally from Rotorua, was proud of his Ma¯ori heritage, competing with a moko image drawn on his face.
He stood for the Maori Party at the 2008 general election.
He quipped to Stuff in 2013 that he had his fair share of injuries.
‘‘I broke most things, except for my knees, which is kind of ironic with a surname of Rutene [roota-knee]. ‘‘You could call me roota-back or root-a-neck but you couldn’t call me root-a-knee.’’ WOOD CHOPPING Jason Wynyard, of Karetu marae in the Bay of Islands, is one of New Zealand’s most decorated sportspeople with more than 240 world wood chopping titles in various disciplines.
He won a world crosscut saw title with his wife, Karmyn, his father, Pae Wynard, was also an accomplished competitive axeman, and his son, Tai, is on a basketball scholarship at the University of Kentucky after playing for the New Zealand Breakers.
Jason and Tai Wynyard were joint winners of the Ma¯ori Sportsperson of the Year award in 2014.
Wynard has Ngapuhi iwi and Ngati Maniapoto and Tainui heritage. BOWLS Matamata’s Millie Khan (Ngati Rangitihi) was the darling of New Zealand bowls at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, winning a silver medal in the singles.
She won bronze eight years later at Kuala Lumpur in 1998 - two years after a bronze with the New Zealand four at the 1996 world championships.
Her daughters, Jan and Marina won a Commonwealth Games pairs bronze medal in 2006.
* Some information accessed from