Tall Order For Students
Tagged in: In The News, Junior Tall Blacks
Alan Apted, Manukau Courier
The 850 pupils of Finlayson Primary School in Manurewa will be all but speaking Khazakh by the time the FIBA U19 World Championship start in Auckland in July.
Their geographic and cultural journey of discovery is all part of their preparations to host Kazakhstan, one of 16 teams chasing the world title.
Deputy principal Nadia Leonard says their involvement in the adoption programme is about exposing the children to the world outside south Auckland.
“We marched at the opening ceremony of the Oceania Softball Championships recently and now we’re adopting a basketball team for the junior world championships.”
Leonard played softball for New Zealand for 13 years and captained the women’s team for six years and knows the value such exercises are for the children.
“They’re learning all about Khazakhstan, where it is, its people, its history and they are excited at the prospect of having them as their team during the championships.
“We’re going to surprise them at the airport when they arrive. We organising a party of about 60 boys and girls to greet them.”
Leonard says Finlayson was the first school in Auckland to sign up for the programme and the entire school is excited by it.
Finlayson got the nod because it is one of the strongest basketball playing primary schools in south Auckland. It has 50 children playing in a weekly competition in Papatoetoe.
As a prelude to what’s to come two Junior Tall Blacks – 1.97 metre tall Morgan Nathan, 18, and 1.83 metre tall Logan van Beek, 19 – visited the school last week to show off the tournament’s mascot Poro and run a few drills with the children.
“Wow,” was the greeting Nathan got when the children measured themselves up against him. “Who are you? Who influenced you to play basketball? How do you balance school and playing basketball?” were some of the questions tossed at the pair.
Papatoetoe East Primary School is the only other school involved in the programme. It’s adopting Puerto Rico and will get a visit from Poro tomorrow.
