The 2021 Award is bestowed on a person who has worked tirelessly in the Gisborne region for many years. A former player with the New Plymouth Bears and Gisborne Suns in the mid-90’s, the recipient turned his attention to coaching after his playing days.
He uses his passion for coaching to aid the development of tamariki and rangatahi to develop the well-being for individuals and communities. He has coached across all age groups from miniball, through high school, age group teams and senior teams.
For 40 Sunday’s a year he would volunteer his time to coach the Under 9’s before 9am, through to the U19’s finishing at 6.30pm. This commitment demonstrates the recipient’s selfless dedication to basketball and his desire to develop not only good ballers but good humans.
In 2018 he received his first national call-up to assist Carley Hewitt with the New Zealand U14 Girls’ team at a tournament in Melbourne.
This achievement sat on the base of his local achievements, coaching representative teams from U13’s to U17’s for Gisborne Basketball Association, Turanganui-a Kiwa Poitukohu, Gisborne Girls High and Boys High teams.
His ability to effectively coach and inspire both female and male teams is a skill not all coaches possess.
His development of the local coaching pool in Gisborne has allowed others to take the lead for local, regional and national teams with coaches commenting that he sees things they may be missing and gives them the tools to teach more effectively.
His citation reads:
He deflects a lot of the praise for his achievements on his supportive family Lisa, Paige and Jerome – the family returned to Taranaki in 2021. Gisborne Basketball Association wish to express how grateful they are to the recipient and his whanau for the time, energy and commitment they gave to the development of basketball in the Gisborne region.
Congratulations to Dwayne Tamatea. Could I please invite Pero Cameron, current Tall Blacks coach, to come forward to accept the Services to Coaching Award on his behalf.
