The third recipient of the Cedric Cudby Volunteer Award is from further north and is a well-known face around the basketball courts of Auckland.
Her list of volunteer activities are numerous including refereeing, educating young referees, venue controlling, score bench officiating and game night statistician.
In 1975 the recipient began her involvement with the Akarana Club which was run by Ross Williams and Maryann Marino at the Auckland YMCA – it was there she began refereeing.
During the 1990’s and early 2000’s she officiated and referee co-ordinated the Auckland Secondary Schools leagues on behalf of College Sport Auckland. She worked through her lunch hour in order to be at the YMCA for a 4pm start.
At grassroots level the recipient was active running miniball and adult leagues, whilst managing and assisting many Auckland representative teams. She was a member of the score bench teams in the halcyon days of the Countrywide Bank National League when Auckland Metro played home games at a packed Pitt St YMCA.
Later she would be the Table Officiating Manager for the Auckland Stars and the Auckland Pirates.
The recipient also assisted at the two major international tournaments that have taken place in Auckland in recent times – the 2017 World Masters Games and the 2009 FIBA U19 World Championship.
More lately she has refereed the Halberg Foundation Wheelchair Basketball Tournaments, Inter-faculty tournaments at Auckland University, the Filipino League and BBNZ 3×3 competitions.
Her citation reads:
I remember the recipient refereeing when I was at Henderson High School and that’s more years ago than I care to think about!
She has acted as manager to numerous teams at school, club and representative level.
To all of our Auckland referees and court managers she is “Aunty Susie” and she is still going strong out there on court, giving her time endlessly with whatever needs to be done for basketball in our community.
There’s not many coaches in Auckland that wouldn’t know Susie Patana. Thank you Susie you truly are an inspiration – the little lady with the big voice and heart
It’s my pleasure to invite the Cedric Cudby Volunteer Award recipient for 2021, Susie Patana to please come forward.
