Resilience and determination is paying off for members of a local basketball team who have returned to Tauranga to celebrate their win in a national tournament.

The Tauranga Special Olympics Basketball Team won gold at the NZ Poitukohu Māori Basketball Nationals held in Rotorua from January 24 -27.

Representing local iwi Te Maru O Mauao Ki Tauranga Moana, the team was competing at what is the largest national Māori tournament in NZ, with over 407 teams and more than 4000 athletes competing, representing 28 iwi. 

The local close-knit team of nine are all of similar ability levels and range from 55 years of age down to 19, says Tauranga Special Olympics Basketball Team head coach Tina Maitland.

“They’ve all got different intellectual and physical disabilities ranging from cerebral palsy right through to autism.”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever been accepted by a team,” says team member Adam Blennerhassett.

“I’ve been in there four years now, I’m 29. We go to a lot of tournaments and we get along off the court as well.

“I just love basketball, always shooting around since I was 11,” he says.

Adam says it was a great feeling to win at the national tournament because Rotorua is his hometown and the final was at his old high school.

“It brought back a lot of memories.”

It was a tough tournament so it felt good to come home with a gold medal, says Adam.

Team member Morgan Penny has been a part of the team since the end of high school. She is now 30.

“It’s good for embracing challenges, just a lot of team bonding,” says Morgan.

“My favourite part of being a part of the team is discovering how we all bring the best out of each other.

Morgan says it was “pretty amazing” to win the national tournament.

“Thankfully it was one of the games in which everyone had a lot of energy.”

Morgan says the biggest difficulty within the team on the court is keeping up the momentum because they aren’t used to competing in tournaments.

She says that the team’s closeness allows them to overcome obstacles by acknowledging each other's strengths and weaknesses so that everyone can move forward together.  

Special Olympics New Zealand has had many different groups of athletes since the seventies, says Tina.

“You’ve got to be on your toes the whole time because you’ve got to be able to adapt to each person.”

Tina took over coaching about four years ago.

“We were only a small group back then, about 12. We are up to 43 players now just for basketball alone.”

Tina says they were approached by other Special Olympic teams about a local Māori basketball tournament where they had a disability section. The team was asked to enter; however, they had to go through a local iwi.

“We found our local iwi and they were fantastic. They popped us straight into the competition, even though they already had a team in there.

“We represented our team under our local Iwi ' Te Maru O Mauao Ki Tauranga Moana.”

Tina says the team has to work well together.

“You could be a fantastic basketball player, but if you haven’t got the right nature or the right personality then it doesn’t work.

“They’re a really close group, they do everything together.

“We do loads of team building exercises outside of Special Olympics and we do a lot of fundraising things as well on the outside. They’re just one big whanau altogether.”

She says the national competition went fantastically for the team.

“This is the largest National Māori Tournament in New Zealand with over 407 teams competing, 4000+ Hapori of attendees and 28 Iwis represented,” says Tina.

The team they played against has been National Special Olympic Champions for several years.

“It was a very difficult competition. They got a goal, we got a goal, they got a goal, we got a goal, and it could have gone either way.

“It wasn’t until the last quarter that we jumped ahead by a few points.”

She says as soon as the buzzer went, they were all jumping up and down and screaming with joy.

“One of them was bawling their eyes out, they were overwhelmed. It was a fantastic feeling.”

This tournament was not run under Special Olympics New Zealand, which meant that it was not funded.

“These guys worked really hard to do fundraising on the outside,” says Tina.

“They do their own fundraising, it can be anything from selling chocolate bars, sausage sizzles and bake sales.”

She says the fundraising is incredibly time-consuming.

“We would love to get some more support from bigger companies to help us out in any way possible. This has been a huge expense for all, about $400 each to go to this event.”

The money they receive through disability allowances doesn't go far, so they have been watching what they spend and how they spend it, says Tina.

She says the team received a generous donation of $500 from an anonymous sponsor which paid for their registration fee for the event.

The local iwi was very supportive of the team, says Tina.

“They organised tee-shirts for us with our local iwi written on them, they’ve come down as a support system and cheered us on at our events and for the finale we had the whole iwi there.

“When we won, they did a haka at the end. They’ve been so supportive and backing us with everything.

“We struggled to find accommodation, they put us in touch with some of the local iwis down there and we were about to speak to people there and find a local house to be put up in.”

The iwi has been fully supportive of the team and backing them the whole way, says Tina.

“The team fought hard over the tournament winning every round-robin game, their semi-final and their finals. 

“They took out the Gold/ first place trophy over NZ National Special Olympics Champs Waikato/Tainui.”

She says their resilience and determination paid off and they pushed through huge physical and mental barriers to win the title. 

“We wish to thank everyone who came and supported our team at the tournament.  

“If there are any willing companies who would like to get behind us and help our gold-winning team get to more events around the country, then we would love to hear from you, as we would love the support.

“Congratulations to the 2024 NZ Poitukohu Māori Basketball Nationals Whaikaha Champions.”