Honours bring off-the-field contributions to sport into the limelight

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Outstanding off-field efforts are rewarded in the Queen's Birthday honours, with Sheila Laxon and Yvonne Willering being made officers of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Laxon burst into the public eye late last year when she trained the Cambridge mare Ethereal to win the Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double.

An amateur jockey until the mid-1980s, she has been in in the racing industry for more than 20 years. She worked with her husband, Laurie Laxon, as a trainer before succeeding in her own right.

Peter Vela, a part-owner of Ethereal, also has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to horse racing and the bloodstock industry.

Willering's outstanding contribution to netball over 30 years ended last year when she was dumped as national coach by Netball New Zealand. She made her mark as a Silver Fern from 1974 to 1983, and turned to coaching two years later.

After spells with the national under-21, Young Internationals, Auckland (twice) and North Harbour sides, Willering began a five-year spell as Silver Ferns coach in 1997.

Others to have their sporting efforts recognised include former athletes Les Mills, Dave Norris and Barry Magee, golfer Brenda Ormsby, Southland cycling stalwart Lawrie Tall, former Kiwi and national rugby league coach Lory Blanchard, and former New Zealand Cricket board member Gerald Bailey.

Magee has been recognised for his deeds off and on the track. The third member of the Arthur Lydiard "stable" to win a medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics - bronze in the marathon - he joined Rome gold medallists Peter Snell and Murray Halberg, and Gary Philpott in breaking the world 4x1 mile record in 1961.

He later coached top athletes, including Kevin Ryan and Kerry Rodger, and less gifted runners. He helped to revamp the South Korean distance running programme.

Norris won bronze in the triple jump at the 1958 Commonwealth Games and silver in the long jump four years later in Perth.

In an amazing career, he won 28 national titles. He has been a coach for 20 years and, since 1994, an Athletics New Zealand selector.

Mills won Commonwealth Games medals between 1958-1970. He was chef de mission for the 1998 team at the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games and for the 2000 Sydney Olympics squad.

Ormsby has been given a Queen's Service Medal for her 30 years in women's golf. Since 1980 Ormsby has won the national amateur strokeplay championship seven times.