Some of the special people who have kept school sport going

 The first excerpt from my book posted here got quite a response. So, here’s another one. It’s my recollection of some of the adults involved in school sport that I’ve come across down the years. Wherever you find a successful programme you will find teachers, parents, coaches and administrators who are prepared to make incredible sacrifices. The give, give and carry on giving. There are way more of them than the 10 I list below, I know. By their nature, I guess some of them may be embarrassed by what I’ve said about them. They deserve all the praise and glory that comes their way.

 

Some special adults

 

SCHOOL sport wouldn’t exist if it were not for the hundreds of adults who organise it. Men and women, teachers and others, who have been coaching and managing teams, administrating programmes, running competitions, catering, transporting and administering First Aid. And for most of the years that I’ve been involved most of them have been doing it as volunteers, without being paid. 

I could trawl through my memories and pick out individuals at just about every school that I dealt with who have been keeping sport alive and thriving in the places that they are at, many of them over long periods of time. They have become an essential part of the communities that they operate it, and they play a massive role in the way that the children in those communities are being raised.

We owe a massive debt to them. That they are increasingly being replaced by outside experts in the current era of professionalised school sport is a tragedy. The system was healthy when the majority of the men and women who were shaping the way that sport was played at schools were of the type I mention here.

My list could run to dozens, but I’ve committed myself to just 10. So here they are, bearing in mind that I could have drawn up 10 lists like this one. 

1 Michael Brady

There was a time when I tried my hand at water polo refereeing. I had to referee the games at school anyway, so I decided to take it more seriously. I joined the refs association and went to the meetings. I enjoyed the challenge of studying the laws and applying them in pressure situations. I never lasted long, however, because I just didn’t enjoy it. I love the game, but I hated refereeing it. I found that water polo is just such an angry place. 

Water polo people in this country don’t know how to get along with each other. There is infighting and backstabbing aplenty and rabid provincialism and the sport is subject to the control of Swimming South Africa, a pretty dodgy organisation with serious control issues.

The coaches scream like banshees on the side of the pool – in a way that isn’t tolerated in any other game – the parents hurl abuse at the opposition and the referees cop it from all sides and take it out on their whistles. 

Worst of all, for a referee, much of what happens takes place underwater, or behind a wall of white spray, so you are guessing most of the time.

Under all those circumstances, you have to marvel at a referee who has stuck it out for 30 years and who has somehow risen above all that toxicity to be something pretty unique in water polo – someone who everyone involved in the game actually likes and respects.

That’s Mike Brady and he’s done it through the sheer force of his personality, and the sacrifices he makes. He runs a group of referees in Joburg and they are on duty at all of the tournaments that take place. He is a superb organiser, often acting as tournament director as well, and he referees the odd game too, while giving the glory of the big fixtures to one of the youngsters he is bringing along.

More importantly, he does it all with a smile on his face and a friendly word to everyone he encounters. The players, parents, coaches and teachers somehow lose that simmering anger when they encounter him. How different water polo would be if there were more Mike Bradys.

2 Norman McFarland

In all the years that I coached and watched schoolboy rugby I never came across anyone who thought as deeply about the game and was as innovative as Norman McFarland. He coached the King Edward VII School first team in a period when they were very successful and they achieved those results through having superb skills but also through the things that Norman introduced to give them the edge over opponents who were often much bigger than they were.

McFarland, who passed away at the age of 79 in 2019, reinvented the game, and he did it because in those days you had to coach the players that came to your school – no shopping to fill gaps – and he made up for any deficiencies in size and natural ability by out-thinking his opponents.

So, famously, his teams employed three-man scrums and two-man lineouts, negating the size disadvantage that they were at, and they beat teams that were clearly physically superior to them. There is a story, retold at his memorial service, that the International Rugby Board actually changed the laws of the game because of his tactics. I suspect that’s apocryphal, but I was a Union referee those days and I do recall that we would spend a lot of time at our monthly law discussion meetings trying to figure out what was legal and what wasn’t and how to referee his teams.

To those of us who coached the teams who had to play KES in those days Norman came across as quite an abrasive character. Looking back now, I guess we just didn’t like the fact that we never won. Certainly, when I’d meet up with him in later life when he worked at St John’s, and after his retirement, he was always friendly, kind, and interested in the things I’d written – he made me feel special and I was always happy to see him.

Before Norman McFarland, coaching school rugby was pretty rudimentary and non-scientific. He changed all of that and was way ahead of his time. 

3 Morgan Pillay

I have attended the under-19 Khaya Majola Cricket Week (and its predecessor, the Nuffield Week) just about every year since 1989. At the 1994 week, hosted at Kearsney College I met a young teacher from Pietermaritzburg, Morgan Pillay. He was on the local organising committee, tasked with keeping track of the state of play in the various matches being played around the area, so he worked quite closely with the media who were there. It was the beginning of a friendship which has gone on for 36 years now and in that time I watched Morgan grow into the best sports administrator I have ever come across and one of the most valuable people in schools cricket in the country.

He has been the permanent organising secretary of the Khaya Majola since 1996. It’s an honorary position – he doesn’t get paid anything more than expenses for doing it – and he has kept his real job as a mathematics teacher all along. The tournament is just a week long, but organising it is an all-year affair, so it’s amazing that he has found the time to do it for so many years.

He has fine-tuned the running of the week over the years to the extent that it runs like clockwork now. The wheel isn’t re-invented every year. Pillay’s personality and his unique style of leadership – he is incredibly demanding, but makes those demands with so much charm that it’s impossible to say no – is what makes it work.

Morgan’s birthday, December 18th, always falls slap bang in the middle of the week, so he’s never home for it. He says it’s tough being away from home, but then he does get to spend his birthday every year surrounded by great friends and in the service of the youth. That’s Morgan Pillay – an administrator who is in it for the right reasons. Oh that there were more of them in cricket!

4 Dave Pitcairn

Dave Pitcairn was responsible for profoundly changing the schools water polo landscape in South Africa. When he became principal of Reddam House School in Cape Town after successful spells as a teacher and coach at Jeppe High School for Boys and St Stithians, he set about making it the top water polo school in the land. He managed that in a remarkably short time and, in the process, developed a model that has been emulated by other new private schools, to the extent that the balance of power has shifted away from the older traditional schools in most of the provinces.

He also revived Western Province Schools water polo and made them the top province in the land.

I first met Dave as a rugby and water polo coach at Jeppe. He went to work as a sports officer at Wits University for a while and then taught at St Stithians. He grew into a formidable coach in both rugby and polo. We were on the provincial executive committees of both together and I was involved in coaching provincial teams with him on occasion. I remember thinking that I was way out of my depth when it came to his technical knowledge of both sports.

His motivational talks were on completely different level. I found myself wanting to jump into the water myself more than once.

He took all of that to Cape Town and he wasn’t happy with the state of Western Province schools water polo when he got there – they were a distant third behind Natal and Transvaal those days – so he set about transforming the game at that level too. He got his some of his ex Saints players who were studying at UCT and Stellenbosch involved as coaches and, before you knew it, WP were tops – a position they still occupy.

Dave and his wife Dee, also a school principal, later moved to Australia where they both run schools. He has left deep footprints and a lasting legacy. He made a huge impression on anyone he met. Me included. 

5 Brian Webster

I met Brian Webster at Johannesburg Otters Water Polo Club where we played together in the mighty third team. He was teaching at St David’s at the time and I was running Transvaal Schools water polo. We got him on board as a coach, it must have been in the early 80s, and nothing was ever the same again. A razor sharp wit, an unbelievably sarcastic tongue and a complete inability to suffer fools gladly are what I remember, and what I continued to come across, as I drifted in and out of his considerable presence down the years.

He taught at King Edward School for a number of years and in that time they became the top polo school in the land - there’s always heaps of talent among those boys, and his rough and ready style suited the sort of culture you get in that type of boys schools.

From there he went to St Stithians where he was as successful, in a different setting. He re-invented himself as a girls water polo coach at some stage and played a big role in the development of the game into the fastest growing girls sport in schools in the country.

He eventually stepped down from senior coaching and took junior teams at Saints that hardly ever lost. He remained in charge there, though, and together with his wife Bridget, he invented and initially ran the Saints Invitational Tournament that others are getting the credit for these days.

At the same time, he stayed involved at a provincial schools level. He ran Gauteng schools polo and expertly organised the SA Schools Championships when asked to. He also ran Crusaders Water Polo, the senior club based at Saints and in the holidays he organised coaching clinics and took teams on overseas tours.

He has since left Joburg. Bridget got a job a prestigious girls school in Grahamstown and Brian has gone along. He runs the tuckshop there, and coaches some polo. Grahamstown is now getting the Webby treatment. It will never be the same again, poolside, for them.

Brian Webster was a constant, sometimes disruptive, presence wherever school water polo was being played. He has left a lasting presence. 

6 Di Williamson

Di Williamson began teaching at Highlands North Boys’ High School one year after I did. She stayed there for another 16 years after I left and then moved across to Saheti School where, although she has retired, she still coaches the swimmers. 

Di was a gifted science teacher who produced good results in the classroom, but it was a swimming coach that she is best known. She coached at the school, and also had her own squad of swimmers who she coached professionally, a number of whom went on to earn provincial and national colours. Later on she specialised in coaching competition lifesaving and open water swimming and has had much success in those.

When I became involved in swimming administration I came to lean heavily on her support. Her phenomenal work rate, combined with the friendly relationships she had with the swimmers and their parents, made her the ideal team manager and she accompanied me on countless internal provincial tours and two overseas trips with SA Schools teams.

Her scientific background meant that she was able to fathom the intricacies of swimming electronic timing devices in the early days when very few others knew how to operate them, so she became a fixture on the ETD computer at galas, along with everything else she was doing. 

Di Williamson epitomises one of the essential foundations of school sport: the indefatigable, behind the scenes worker without whom things would never happen. There are many of them in schools– most of them women – Di Williamson was the one I was blessed to have as a friend and colleague.  

7 Adi Norris 

In my early days of reporting on school sport I got to know the people who were involved in organising primary school soccer and cricket in Joburg. The remarkable thing was that they were practically the same group. The two committees had different chairman, but they had plenty of members in common – passionate young men who were prepared to sacrifice hours of time so that little boys could play those games.

Fast forward 30 years and, amazingly, quite a few of them are still involved, although retirements are staring to take their toll now. 

One of those is Adi Norris, although he moved into high school sport at St John’s College later, and he is still going strong. He joined the St John’s staff in 1990, at the prep school but later moved across to the College where he has coached the 1st cricket team for years and played a part in the development of many cricketers who have gone on to higher honours including, recently, Devon Conway who is the New Zealand national team. 

He was responsible for the introduction of soccer as a sport in the high school and coaches that, as well as the under-16 rugby team.

He has also become synonymous with the St John’s Easter rugby festival. He has had a hand in much of the organisation of the event for the past 25 years, but his major contribution has been looking after the visitors, coaches and players. The relationships he has built up with the schools over the years have played a major part in ensuring that this festival consistently attracts more of the top-ranked schools in the country than the other two Johannesburg Easter events. Schools don’t accept invitations to events like this, he told me once, coaches do. His philosophy is that if you make the occasion special enough for the coaches, they will ensure that their teams will come back again.

Adi is the modern version of the fabled old school schoolmaster. A bachelor, married to his work, who keeps on contributing year after year. He is one of that rare breed of teacher-coaches who could probably coach any sport he was asked to, and do it successfully. He has made a massive contribution to the unique type of education that a school like St John’s offers. It’s impossible to imagine the place without him.

8 Tutty Faber 

Schools can only dream of having old boys/parents/supporters like Tutty Faber at King Edward VII School 

He matriculated at the school in 1957, having attended King Edward Prep School, and played 1st team rugby and cricket. He qualified as a civil engineer and played rugby for the then Transvaal in 1961 and 1962. In time his sons attended the prep and high schools and Tutty served on the governing bodies of both, eventually as chairman at both schools. He was also the Chairman of the Strenue Trust. 

It’s more than 35 years now since his sons have left the school, but his association has continued. He began coaching the under-14 (previously under-13) rugby team in 1982 and continues to do so. He has also coached the shotput athletes for all those years. In recognition of his service the South rugby field at KES - where the under-14s practice and play - was renamed the Tutty Faber field in 2007. He is a generous benefactor to the Prep and High schools, supporting building projects and funding scholarships.

My first contact with him was through rugby – my under-13 teams played his and I can’t recall ever winning any of those games. I remember him entering into a lengthy and complicated discussion of the laws of the game at a referees meeting in those early days and he has remained an expert ever since. His teams were coached to play running rugby, underpinned by a firm grasp of the basic skills and superb fitness. It was the foundation on which generations of King Edward 1st teams were built in the years that followed. 

More than anything else, Tutty Faber is a gentleman. You always get the impression that he is pleased to see you, and I never saw him lose his cool. To outsiders like me, he symbolised the consistent striving for excellence that King Edward is known for. Other schools have supporters who are as dedicated and passionate about their schools as he is, he could teach most of them how it can be done with class. 

9 Ernest Botha

When I was part of the group of teachers who decided to establish soccer as an official sport at our schools, we knew we had to speak to someone for advice on how to go about it. There was only one man to call - Ernest Botha. Ernie wasn’t a teacher; he was a professional photographer by trade, but he has been a presence in schools and youth football in Joburg for 50 years. He was a coach, referee and administrator and yes, he told us exactly how to draw up a constitution, how to organise a league and knockout competition and who to affiliate to.

In all the years that I was involved in school sport I don’t think I came across anyone quite as dedicated as he was. He’d be coaching at one school, helping another to get the game started at another, refereeing in every spare moment and serving on the local amateur football association executive, all at the same time.

His was a lifetime love of children and the game. And it is still going on. A few years ago, I went to a rugby match at a school in the South of Joburg and noticed there were primary school soccer games being played on a nearby field. I wandered over, looking to take a few pictures, and found the referee was Ernest. He was well into his sixties by then, and he didn’t stray much outside of the centre circle, but he blew his whistle with authority and the boys were well under control. I chatted to him at the end of the game and he told me he would be reffing all four games to be played that afternoon because the schools involved couldn’t get anyone else – that’s Ernie Botha.

10 Khaya Majola 

The name Khaya Majola has become synonymous with schools cricket ever since the under-19 interprovincial week was named after him in 2001. At the time of his death the year before, he oversaw amateur cricket at Cricket South Africa. Before that, he ran the CSA development programme and those who worked with him say that the increasing interest in cricket from young black boys and girls can largely ascribed to the work he did.

I was fortunate to have known Khaya Majola quite well. His son Vukile, who we knew as Eric, went to Highlands North Boys’ High before the family moved to Boksburg and he was a very good centre in the junior rugby team I coached.

Khaya was at every game we played that year, and many of the practices. He was friendly and generous with his time and advice. After that, I would see him at the Coca-Cola Week each year, and also from time to time at club cricket games in Joburg because, and it’s not widely known, Khaya was also the coach of the Soweto Cricket club.

His role there was very significant, and topical, as the cricket transformation debate rages on. I spoke with him about it on several occasions and he was convinced that the way to keep promising black cricketers involved in the game beyond school was to create opportunities for them to play as a team of their own, in their own environment, not as the odd black player in the predominately white clubs of Northern Joburg.

His death, at just 47, was tragic on so many levels, not the least of being that cricket was robbed of a man who was clearly destined to play a major leadership role in the game later on. Cricket South Africa, I would wager, wouldn’t be in the mess that it’s in these days if Khaya Majola was still around.