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Perfect Storm of Circumstance Affects 2012 Uni Games Entries

Auckland University successfully defended its 2011 Uni Games title at last week’s annual tournament in Wellington. Nine teams entered the multi-sport event competing in badminton, basketball, bowls, cricket, football, netball, touch, ultimate and volleyball.

Among this year’s entrants were Invercargill’s Southland Institute of Technology (the games are open to all tertiary institutions) as well as two other unis from Auckland – AUT, and Massey Albany - which retained its Best Small Campus award from last year. The team spirit award went to Otago University, a Uni Games stalwart and winner of the University Shield 35 times since 1923. Otago with Canterbury, Victoria and Auckland competed in the very first games held in 1902.

Peter McDonald, acting executive director of the event’s controlling body, University Sport New Zealand, said he was pleased with the level and spirit of competition, even though the number of entries and teams were down on expectation.

“It’s the first year under voluntary student membership (VSM), and that’s probably the biggest contributor to the lower numbers this year. Most universities have opted to fund their student associations, but some service agreements haven’t been finalised yet. “

Next time, these financial arrangements should be sorted, although the other major attendance issue was the high registration fees for students from non-member institutions. Only seven North Island tertiary campuses belong to the national university sporting body, with Lincoln the sole South Island member.

“The fee was set high for non-members to encourage them to become members. In hindsight it should have been lower, but this too is all part of the new VSM environment,” Mr McDonald explained.

Timing of the games, traditionally held around Easter, created a further issue with the holiday falling early this year.

“It’s only been six weeks after the start of the university year, and that has made things difficult,” Mr McDonald admitted.

Easter 2013, however falls a whole week earlier again, so student sport development officers will really have to be on the ball with asking for and sending in entries next year.

Any thoughts of moving the event creates a different set of difficulties. Many competing students are involved in national age-group tournaments, and the Uni Games has to fit into a national sporting calendar. Part of University Sport New Zealand’s role is liaison with that wider national sporting community so tertiary sporting events don’t conflict with that national calendar..

“We’re going to be conducting a full review of the games over the next couple of weeks,” Mr McDonald said. ”Our goal is for the Uni Games to be a national university championships, and recognised as such by national associations, with full-length games and nationally accredited umpires and referees – but without losing any of its social aspects.”

The acting director, who stepped into the role in September 2011 after the unexpected resignation of his predecessor for personal reasons, also wants a higher level of recognition to extend to the universities themselves and to the student body, as well as to the national media and the public.

“We’ll be back next year, bigger and better,” Mr McDonald asserted. “Numbers were lacking this year, but the games were really good. This is a traditional part of university sport, and it will continue.”

An announcement about where Uni Games 2013 will be held won’t be made until sometime in May, but it will probably be in the South Island, with a number of this year’s participants picking Dunedin as the most likely host city.

Contacts:

Richard Mays, media, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , 027 40 40 314

Peter McDonald, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Jill Ford, Project Manager Uni Games 2012, www.unigames.co.nz;

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , skype – jillford; 021 671 291, +64 438-94496

Smells like Team Spirit

On a blustery cold Wellington autumn day, the blue of Auckland University is taking on the red clad Honeybadgers of Canterbury University. It could be any traditional Canty vs Auckland sporting code clash, but it ain’t.

Instead, picture a sporting mash-up between say a code like American gridiron and a non-contact sport like, um… netball.  If that boggles the ol’ brainbox a bit, how about then taking away the ball and replacing it with a plastic 175-gram disc.

OK, so there are no helmets, pads, scrimmages or cheerleaders either. There’s no TV coverage, and little in the way of sponsorship – but there are scoring end-zones and turnovers. Players sometimes wear NFL receiver boots. End of resemblance to gridiron.

As for netball, there is one-on-one marking, and players can pivot but are not permitted to step or run with the disc in hand, but are given 10 seconds to release it. And like netball, there are seven players in an on-field team - but this game takes place on a playing area measuring 64 x 37 metres, and there are no hoops.  The aim is to have a receiver catch a flying disc in an 18-metre long end-zone to score. The first team to score 17, or is ahead when time is up, wins.

Another feature of this game is that it is self-regulated. There are no umpires, with players sorting out any fouls or disputes democratically during play.

Welcome to ultimate, ultimate disc or ultimate frisbee, where a game can last from one-and-a-half to two hours, and where pick-ups, hat tournaments, soft-cap and hard-cap, cutters and handlers are part of an extended glossary that describe features of a sport founded in New Jersey, USA back in 1968.

It is a point universally acknowledged among New Zealand’s 2000 or so players, that Wellington’s Victoria University is the country’s ultimate club stronghold. Other university teams turned up in the capital for the 2012 ‘Wellywood’ Uni Games hoping to best Victoria’s two home teams.

It’s day two of the preliminary competition: heavy overnight rain means the players have relocated to an artificial pitch, but the blustery conditions are making throws tricky to direct. There is the odd contact – unintentional - a disc whacks into a player’s eye. Earlier, a Massey Albany player was side-lined after the back of her head ‘accidentally someone’s knee’.

Hamish Gibson has played for both Canterbury and Auckland university teams. The 19-year-old second year civil structuring engineer student moved north from Christchurch at the beginning of the year and is now at Auckland U.

A former U-19 New Zealand rep, Hamish was part of the age-group Kiwi squad that cleaned up their Australian counterparts 3-0 in both the men’s and women’s test series played last year. In July he is off to the Worlds in Osaka Japan as a member of the New Zealand men’s squad.

“Fitness is massive,” he said, “and there are heaps of opportunities to play. Every university has its own club, and there are five other clubs around the country. Any weekend there’ll be a pick-up game somewhere.”

A pick-up game is the same as: turn up and join a makeshift team, or slot into a regular team that’s a player or two short. And have fun.

While fitness, agility, dexterity, field placement and positional play are all important, there is a further vital ingredient.

“Spirit. Spirit is another massive part of the game. Every player is responsible for their own conduct. After every game, each team decides on their opponent’s male and female MVP, and also decides which player gets recognised for showing the spirit of the game,” Hamish explained. “So, there are awards given for sprit and for skill.”

‘Spirit of the game’ is an ethos reflected in the self-regulating culture of the competition where any disputed play or foul, by agreement, may simply be replayed. At the end of the game there is no individual team huddle followed by the usual ‘hip rays’ for the opposition and ref, there is a full game huddle where players can express their approval for others and the way the game was played.

By the end of the Uni Games tournament, Victoria had indeed shown their depth. The Victoria Thundercats enjoyed a close fought win over Auckland, with Victoria 2 third. But just as important was the award for the team that epitomised the tournament’s ‘spirit of the game’. It went to Canterbury’s Honeybadgers.

Canty Clinches Uni Games Volleyball

Volleyball was the first final to be decided at the 2012 Uni Games in Wellington. Played between Canterbury University and Victoria, the victorious Cantabs had help from a couple of long lean overseas imports in Jonathan Tuttle from the USA and Jeremy Pascal from France.

From the small village of Wales, Wisconsin, Jonathan is two-and-a-half years into studying Watershed Management and Adventure Education in Christchurch. An outdoors ‘nut’ the 20-year-old has found plenty to excite him in New Zealand.

“I just love New Zealand’s great outdoors – mountain-biking, tramping, white-water rafting and kayaking.”

So are there no equivalent scenic splendours in the US?

“It’s New Zealand,” he replies emphatically. “Two hours from the ocean to the mountains – it’s pretty awesome.”

Around this outdoor activity and his studies, Jonathan also finds time to fit in team sports.

“Tennis, basketball, football, soccer, ultimate frisbee…anything. I don’t play video games and I don’t watch TV,” the 1.87 tall Jonathan says.

Oh, and of course there’s volleyball, where his distinctive dynamic running serve, court nous, positional play and reflexes added extra physical spice to Canterbury’s game.

“I used to play for a club team in college,” he says modestly.

On graduating, Jonathan will return to the States looking at options on the mission field – he’s spent uni holidays on a Campus Crusade for Christ mission ship in Alaska - or with the Department of Natural Resources, the US equivalent of DOC.

Jeremy, the young American’s ‘twin towers’ 1.92 French teammate hails from the historic town of Beaune in Burgundy, deep in the heart of wine country, with a population between 20 and 30,000. Surrounded by vineyards, autumn he says, makes for quite a scenic spectacle.

From an engineering school in Strasbourg near the German border, the 24-year-old engineering student is two months into a six-month internship at Canterbury.

“I need to do this as part of my studies,” he explains. “I wanted to go to an English-speaking country, and lots of people told me what a beautiful place New Zealand is. I applied for an internship in New Zealand and Australia, and Canterbury was the university that responded.”

Despite the ground shaking occasionally, the promise of his New Zealand sojourn is living up to every expectation, with Jeremy is looking forward to getting in some skiing before he returns to France.

“It’s really beautiful, and I am really enjoying myself here.”

Just as well the pair are not living and studying in Wellington, or possibly there’d be another distraction adding to their New Zealand experience after this ‘seeking Middle Earth elves’ item was posted during the week of the Uni Games by TV3:

‎"We are looking for Wellington-based men and women, slender builds, 182cm and over with flexible availability for The Hobbit".

Winning Canterbury University volleyball players need not apply.

Courting a Netball Tournament Win

From making a splash in the pool to making an impact on court, AUT’s Jamie Johns is a seasoned dual sport competitor who really rated her Uni Games netball team.

Her confidence was well justified. After the first day of pool play games at Wellington’s ASB Sports Centre, her AUT Titans had despatched Otago University 55-31, dealt to Invercargill’s SIT  104 -18, before beating Victoria 66-25, with Jamie running a highly effective centre court.

AUT met Otago again in the final, winning comfortably 60-30, with Jamie and four of her team-mates named in the Uni Games tournament team.

“It was still a hard game,” she said afterwards, limping from the effects of an achilles injury sustained earlier in the tournament, and having elected to play the final with her calf strapped.

A former U-17 New Zealand swim team rep, for eight years Jamie held the national title for 50m breast stroke. She still has a swimmer’s back and shoulders, although the 20-year-old has pulled the plug on the pool to concentrate on her passion, netball.

“I’ve been swimming since I was eight-years-old, but I’ve been playing netball since I was five; and before that I used to watch my mum play from my pram on the side-lines. So, I’ve been with netball pretty much my whole life, I guess.”

Jamie juggles game and training time between her third year conjoint Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Sport & Recreation at AUT, a social life, and a part-time job as a member of the Red Bull sampling team.

“Sport is a passion that helps keep me motivated and interested in my studies,” she says. “I’m looking to be involved in sports marketing or management, that kind of thing.”

A member of the top of the table Auckland-Waitakere rep squad, the 1.70m tall Jamie is developing as a mid-court specialist.

“I’m too short to play anywhere else,” she grins, “but I’d like to play for a franchise team, either in Auckland…or anywhere.“

Jamie’s other physical ‘defect’, those wide back and shoulders, sometimes make a netball top a restrictive fit, but hasn’t hampered her on-court bustle.

As for the Uni Games tournament, the centre says her 12-strong squad came to Wellington with high expectations.

“We have a couple of rep players and a former New Zealand secondary school player, and though we didn’t know anything about the other teams we were facing, we thought we’d do pretty well.”

As top New Zealand Uni Games netball team, Jamie and her Titans look like going to Lismore in New South Wales in August for Australia’s Northern University Games.

University Bowls Player Beats the Age Bias

An act of social bravado nearly put paid to Conor Muir’s Wellington Uni Games tournament. A member of the national lawn bowls talent development squad, the 18-year-old first-year Otago phys-ed student misjudged a leap off a two metre high wall. The landing crunch put him in a full length leg cast with a suspected heel fracture.

“I couldn’t walk on it for two weeks. Yeah, it affected my preparation for the Games. Bit hard to play when you can’t walk.”

Fortunately, the heel was only bruised, but the injury also affected Conor’s build up to the previous weekend’s U-20 nationals in Auckland where he managed to make the Plate semi-final.

“I coulda done better,” he shrugs, “but with my foot, I didn’t get much practice.”

Skip of the Otago University fours, Conor also plays rugby, and until last year, ice-hockey.

“I love sports, and I love being outside, and bowls is a real good social outside game.”

But bowls is an oldie’s pastime, right? Well no one told these dudes (and the odd dudette) competing at Kilbirnie’s The Park Bowling Club. Braving a threateningly soggy ‘Wellington boots’ sort of day, some of the young players wear a token item of white clothing, but most are in dark-coloured team hoodies, some wear three-quarter length pants and there’s a variety of footwear that includes sneakers, sports shoes and jandals.

Intense moments are alleviated by the game’s usual camaraderie along with the odd good-natured ‘you play like a dick!’ type outburst directed down the green at a team mate who has managed to duff a drive.

No one can fully explain though why the game at this level seems to appeal so much more to blokes. The best guess going is that it has something to do with sport and male bonding and the odd beer on the outcome of a game, otherwise there are shrugs all round. Even at national U-20 level, Conor says 32 guys qualified and only 16 gals.

The young bowler took up the game five years ago, and was soon on a roll.

“My parents went away overseas and I went to stay with my grandparents who took me along to their club, and I started having a go. I was a bit of a natural, and when you start winning you keep wanting to play.”

Conor’s ability saw him make the Central Otago rep team at a prodigiously young age, and the player has further representative goals he wants to realise.

“I’d like to make the New Zealand U-25 team, but I’ve got quite a few years for that.”

Long term, he wants to be in the New Zealand bowls team and play at the sport’s premier international tournament, the Commonwealth Games.