Commitment to sport runs in the family

For some, going to work and school every day can be an excuse to get away from their family, but for the Tatanas, whanau comes first - in their working and sporting life.

The athletic Tatana clan has been involved with sport at Makoura College for close to two decades - and, of the immediate family of six, five of its members are still passing on their years of wisdom to the school's young sports stars.

Mum and Dad, Sid and Shirley Tatana, coach rugby and netball at Makoura, while eldest daughter Sydney Cunningham (nee Tatana) is school sports co-ordinator, and her twin sisters Perri Tatana-Williams and Kerewai Tatana teach the ball sport ki-o-rahi and coach the Senior A netball team respectively.

Sister Dayle Clarkson (nee Tatana), who the family affectionately dub "the loudest one", worked as Makoura's sports co-ordinator back in 1997 - eventually getting her whole whanau on board. "I started coaching teams at Makoura, and then I got Mum involved as a netball coach," said Dayle, who now works for Sport Wellington.

"Then, everyone else just poured in. I was looking for coaches and we have a whole family of coaches."

For current sports co-ordinator Sydney, working side-by-side with her parents and sisters makes her job a breeze. "Having my family on board makes the job a lot easier," she said. "You can always rely on someone to do something for you."

"Yeah, if you want a decent birthday present, you help out your family," said Dayle, while her family laughs.

For the four Tatana daughters, sport has been an integral part of life since they were tots. Dad Sid joked that he instilled a love of sport into his girls by "chucking them in the pool".

"The girls swam right through college," he said.

"They moaned and groaned at me to be allowed to do competitive swimming. And I told them, 'once you start you can't give up.'

"It did them real good - it gave them a lot of discipline and shaped them up real well."

Since then, the Tatana women now play and coach a variety of sports, predominantly rugby and netball.

Kerewai and Sid do waka ama, and Perri helped facilitate Makoura's ki-o-rahi programme, as part of her role as a promoter of traditional Maori games at Whaiora Wairarapa.

The daughters clearly relish sharing their years of knowledge with Makoura's students.

Dayle says that, in the past 12 months, Makoura's sporting participation has increased by 7 per cent - one of the biggest increases in the country.

"What Makoura has achieved is no mean feat. Huge credit has to go to Sydney as sports co-ordinator for the work she's done."

She says that, over the 16 years the family has been involved at Makoura, they have become well-known among the students - but it's netball coach Kerewai that's the definite favourite. "She's also canteen manager. So, she has something all the kids want."