Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew is sitting on the beach at Pipeline and is staring out to sea. The waves are fifteen feet and the sets are even bigger. It is 1988. “Rabbit” has been coming here each winter for well over ten years... since he was a skinny little kid, in fact... and now he figures he knows the wave like the back of his hand. That’s why he is staring out to sea. Smart … [Read more...]
Forgiveness and trust… the keys to playing great footy (and being a great rugby league coach)!
Tim Edwards sits in on a Ben and Shane Walker (coaching guru brothers who mentor the Queensland Rugby League's Ipswitch Jets) video analysis session with their players and tries to figure out just what makes them so different from other coaches. Ben and Shane Walker coach the Ipswich Jets in the Intrust Super Cup, Queensland's rugby league competition. The former NRL star … [Read more...]
Cecil Healy – the village hero who changed the world through his sport!
One of Australia's least known sporting heroes changed the world in so many ways... but his mercurial swimming and other sporting feats were not much help against the guns and bombs of war! Manly is viewed by most as a commercial, services and tourism hub surrounded by an urban sprawl. Well, it is that. Sort of. But it’s also a village. Even twenty years ago, when I still … [Read more...]
A very strange summer (1966–1967) – when surfers became sporting gods but social pariahs!
In a strange quirk of history while one of Sydney Northern Beach's greatest ever surfers was winning the world title in the USA, public authorities back in Australia were banning his wonderful sport! On a windy Sunday morning a few dozen surfers were enjoying some fun, little waves at the protected southern end of Palm Beach. Around mid-morning the patrol captain of the … [Read more...]
Titus Kinimaka’s nightmare Christmas
Only a very special few are capable of handling the very worst that the ocean can deal out. No one is a fitter, stronger, tougher, braver and more skilful all-around water man than Titus Kinimaka from Kauai, Hawaii. On Christmas day in 1989, Titus had the worst thrown at him and though he definitely did not walk away unscathed, he, at least, survived. Most of us wouldn’t … [Read more...]