Individualism

Te Ao Hou, June 1962, Page 55

Individualism Perhaps the reason for this is that for most summer sports, a player must adopt an individualistic approach and spend hours of practice by himself. Myself, I think I would find this uninteresting, and I am sure many other Maoris would too. To spend an evening or Sunday morning hitting a tennis ball against a volley-board or bowling a cricket ball at a stick or fence, or sprinting down a track against imaginary opponents does not seem to appeal to the Maori. The actual game might be enticing but the individual practice demanded for competitive play seems to kill any keenness. The fact that there are Maoris playing summer sports and that they are not reaching the top-line consistently, if at all, is I think due to some of these reasons. One other point that can be added is that in most summer sports, unlike winter sports, bodily contact between players is absent. I am confident that we can excel in every sport, including summer ones; but so far, apart from the fact that most of us live in the country and have not had the opportunity to participate regularly, we have not yet developed the inclination.