Kia Ora Koutou
Ko Murray Te Huki toku ingoa
No Dannevirke ahau
My family and I have relocated back to New Zealand after living and working overseas at International Schools for the past 25 years. My wife is a primary school teacher, my oldest son is studying law at Victoria University and my younger son is a Year 12 at Palmerston North Boys High School and plays on their Premier A Boys basketball team.
I completed my teachers training at Palmerston North Teachers College and Massey University in 1983 and have been teaching for a total of 37 years. I began my career as an intermediate school home room teacher at Hawera Intermediate School, Taranaki for 12 years. For the past 25 years I have been an Athletic Director and PE teacher in international Schools in Syria, Bulgaria, Senegal, and Malaysia. Beginning this August, I started working for Sport Manawatu as the Healthy Active Learning team lead and this has me and a team going into primary schools in Manawatu PNCC, Tararua and Horowhenua regions getting tamariki more active through play, PE, active recreation, and sport.
I do have a lot of history with basketball in this region. I am from Dannevirke, and we had a family basketball team called Detroit and myself and 4 brothers played on this team in the 70s and 80s. We played in a strong competition in Dannevirke and regularly attended tournaments at Pascal Street and the YMCA. In 1980 to 1984, I played on the Palmerston North Teachers College team and one year coached by Howard Wills and played alongside Kevin Smith stalwarts of Manawatu Basketball. From Teachers college I moved to Hawera and for a few years played on the 2nd and 3rd division teams and was coached by Curtis Wooten. Then I moved overseas. I have been involved in coaching basketball here in NZ and overseas for over 40 years. In 1982, I coached QEC to the Palmerston North secondary boys A championship beating Fielding Ag. I follow my son’s team at Boys High and was fortunate to travel to Dunedin with the U17 Boys team, where they were unlucky not to make the top 8. Finally, we have resurrected the Detroit team this year in the summer social league and allowing me to play alongside my 2 sons.
I am excited to be on the Board of Basketball Manawatu and feel I have a lot of experience and enthusiasm to positively contribute to this organization. It feels great to be back involved in basketball in the Mighty Manawatu after many years.
No reira tena koutou, tena koutou,tena koutou katoa
