A Timaru rowing coach has had more than a decade of work on the water celebrated.
Brian Smith (Ngāi Tahu) has coached rowing at Timaru Boys’ High School since 2009, leading squads to success at club, school and national levels on a voluntary basis.
For his efforts he was awarded a King’s Service Medal for services to rowing in the New Year Honours list.
Mr Smith said when he initially received the email informing him about the award he thought it was a scam.
‘‘It’s a bit humbling, I think Kiwis still have the tall poppy thing so I appreciate the acknowledgement but it is definitely a collective award. There’s a lot of people who make this up, we get immense support from our fundraisers, the school and from the community.
‘‘There’s some part of me that thinks you’re not worthy of it, but I think that’s just that you don’t realise you’re getting old. There are probably other people who have coached longer in the community, but I think it’s the way we do things as opposed to how long we’ve done it.
‘‘It’s nice to be acknowledged and appreciated, but I get a lot of that feedback anyway from what we create, and I don’t do it for those reasons. It is a nice bonus.’’
Since 2020 at the Maadi Cup, the New Zealand Secondary School Rowing Championships, TBHS have won numerous medals, placing them consistently in the top 10 ranking for boys’ schools and finishing as high as second place.
Mr Smith has overseen these successes despite significant resource disparities and TBHS fielding smaller squads on average, around 10 to 20 students compared to other schools with squads of more than 60.
From a student-to-medal ratio, his record makes him one of the most effective secondary school rowing coaches in New Zealand.
He also coached the New Zealand coxed eight in 2022 for a trans-tasman event and has coached South Island under-18 teams.
Mr Smith said he initially got into coaching rowing through his children.
‘‘My daughter came back from school one day and said ‘Dad, I want to give rowing a try’. My son then got into coxing and then rowing and ended up winning Maadi in the lightweight.
‘‘The teacher in charge [of rowing at TBHS] had five or six boys and there was no coach, so I was asked if I could help out.
‘‘I’ve done some rowing courses and conferences over the years and kind of learnt off just being open to learning and that’s what I’ve asked of the boys, to just make sure they’re just open to learning how to row.’’
He said he was proud of how of how the rowing programme at TBHS had progressed over the years he had been coaching.
‘‘I know it’s over-used but we’ve formed that culture and that environment. It’s not the Olympics, we’re just doing school sport.
‘‘We take it seriously that we want to be competitive, but we’re not sort of hard out. It’s really important that they’re having a really good time and we actually make sure we have a lot of fun, and it’s kind of relaxed.’’
