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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

SocietyAugust 2, 2022

Rainbow athletes have always been in sports

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Many athletes are queer, but sporting bodies have much to learn when it comes to supporting them, writes Alice Soper.

Much is made of the hypothetical watershed moment in sport, where we get to point to our first out queer athlete in a big brand men’s team and consider the rainbow officially ticked. Then, and only then, will homophobia and transphobia be conquered and we will hoist the rainbow flag to flutter in the breeze of a new tomorrow. Today, former Black Cap Heath Davis did just that, an undeniably massive step for men’s sport in Aotearoa.

Long ago, however, that rainbow flag had been woven into the fabric of another part of our sporting community. Queer wāhine athletes have been so normalised across so many codes that it’s not unusual to see partners and wives end up playing alongside each other. 

Shaylee Tipiwai and Te Maari MacGregor are one such couple. The two met while playing rugby at high school and then went on to play provincially together for the Hawke’s Bay Tui. 

“I was introduced to the rugby scene at high school when it was all female,” Tipiwai, 30, recalls. “And being in third form and playing in the only girls team at the school, there were already a number of gay people.” They soon became mates, and Tipiwai met MacGregor, who she’d eventually marry.

“I wouldn’t classify myself as a lesbian,” says MacGregor. “I’m just happy with who I’m with. But being around women who were just honest – with themselves, each other and who they were – made it easier to be free to be who you are and free to love who you love.”

‘He mea tautoko nā ngā mema atawhai. Supported by our generous members.’
Liam Rātana
— Ātea editor

From day one in their chosen sport, the rainbow was there. The sport shaped by the community that chose to play it. However, women’s sport in Aotearoa and around the globe is experiencing a moment of exponential growth. As the playing base evolves, the implicit inclusivity of women’s sports now reckons with how to hold on to those values. 

Cat Myhill is pansexual and plays hockey in Wellington. She remembers chat about “a queer hockey club in Wellington and it had a few teams within it”. But until this year, Myhill has been, to her knowledge, the only “out” player in her teams.

For the most part though, that hasn’t had a negative effect on Myhill’s playing experience. “My only instance of ‘queer nerves’ was last year,” she remembers. “During a BYO one of the seniors went around the table and asked each player individually if they had a boyfriend.” Adding to the stress, Myhill happened to be sitting next to the person interrogating everyone which meant she was the very last person to be asked.

Myhill disclosed she had a girlfriend and thankfully nobody flinched. The senior player later apologised in private for having put her on the spot and they continued on with their evening. “Within all that though I do want to acknowledge that this could have gone down differently and it easily could have affected someone negatively.”

Research suggests that women in male-prevalent sports, regardless of their sexuality, are often assumed to be lesbians and experience discrimination as a result. There is often very little by way of written policy regarding rainbow athletes in sports environments which can lead to management making decisions for players without discussion.

“When we played together, if we travelled with the team they’d just put us together as roommates,” Tipiwai recalls. “But I didn’t actually want to room with my wife. It wasn’t about going away to spend time with each other, it was more about focusing on the team.”

MacGregor agreed. “I played in 2003 and there was like 10 years [of Hawke’s Bay provincial women’s rugby] before me, so they’ve had a lot of time to write something up.” 

This lack of competency in supporting LGBTQIA+ athletes was something identified as part of the Black Ferns culture and environment review. Despite MacGregor describing rugby as “super gay, rainbow as”, the review found there to be “limited comfort and education around supporting rainbow players”. 

Caitlin Eves is a cis woman who loves women and cricket. She played through the age grades in Christchurch and now sits on her local club committee as well as the Cricket Wellington female reference group. Despite being involved in the development of inclusion policies in her work in the public service, this isn’t a conversation she has brought into her chosen sport. 

Amy Satterthwaite and Lea Tahuhu are married and played together for the White Ferns (Photo by Dave Rowland/Getty Images)

Eves is the perfect champion for such a cause, with experience in establishing a queer sport space. While living in Canada, she joined a rainbow dodgeball league and brought this sport, along with its inclusive practices, back with her to Wellington. 

“I need to give credit to the Canada league because I stole some stuff from them and then changed it to make it more kiwi.” Eves confesses. “I used that and I also was very intentional at the start of each season in actually talking to everybody and saying up front that this is an inclusive space.”

More support would be required from the sport’s governing body, were Eves to take up the cause and see these principles incorporated into the local cricket community. Without leadership at the top, Eve’s believes it would be hard for any initiatives to gain traction. 

“It shouldn’t be on me just because I’m the lone woman or the lone queer person happy to fight for the queer people on the committee,” Eves says. ”The amount of times I have to fight for things and explain why what they’re doing isn’t quite right for the woman’s side of the club. That’s already a lot of energy.” 

Now is the time though, with change coming locally on the back of new domestic requirements for women’s cricket. Clubs will need to meet certain targets around the number of women on the board to qualify as Premier and Eves sees this as an opportunity to take further steps with the addition of other diversity requirements. 

Queer athletes have stepped out and now they need their sports to step up. The collective wish is to see their governing bodies frontfoot more of these conversations and initiatives. Like all those that love sport, these athletes understand the importance of leaving the jersey better than you found it. For them, that means ensuring that all athletes feel safe to play the sports they love.

“It’s been great being under the radar… what would bringing attention to us mean?” MacGregor asks. “It will be a positive attention but then there’s always going to be that negative side and that’s where I worry, not for myself but others. I just have to make sure everyone is safe.”  

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Duncan Greive
— Founder

So before any rainbow rounds or jerseys, before any ambassadors are appointed, before any plans are put in place, sports need to do what a number of its rainbow athletes have already done. Understand itself and whether or not it is safe yet to come out. 

Keep going!
Heath Davis: Terrifyingly fast (Photos: Supplied)
Heath Davis: Terrifyingly fast (Photos: Supplied)

SportsAugust 2, 2022

Growing up with the myth of Heath Davis

Heath Davis: Terrifyingly fast (Photos: Supplied)
Heath Davis: Terrifyingly fast (Photos: Supplied)

As a Central Districts age-group cricket rep, Dylan Cleaver witnessed a cricketing legend being written in real time. 

What I’m about to tell you is mostly true: when Heath Te-Ihi-O-Te-Rangi Davis was 14 years old he was eight foot tall, had nostrils that flared like a Gorgon’s and could bowl at 150km/h.

If you don’t believe me it’s because you weren’t there cowering under the shade trees of Whanganui’s Victoria Park waiting for your turn to walk the green mile to the middle and face his peculiar brand of chin music.

Heath Davis. The name alone conjures up vivid, visceral memories. He haunted my teenage years.

I had the good fortune to be selected for age-group rep teams that regularly played his Hutt Valley and Wellington sides. And I had the misfortune of being nowhere near good enough to deal with him.

When you get to our age you think you remember more than you do about those snatches of youth. The broad outlines might remain intact but the colouring-in changes to suit the story you’re telling. But I remember every game my teams played against Heath Davis – the outlines and the colouring-in. Even if he remains a somewhat mythical figure, those matches were very real.

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’
Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor

The first was a winner-takes-all game between Western Districts and Hutt Valley for the North Island under-15 title. This in itself was a minor miracle. We were two of the historically weaker teams, but that year we were coached by a technical genius named Phil Cooper (who had all the charm of an eftpos machine), and captained by the hyper-competitive, flame-haired allrounder David Lamason. Hutt Valley were usually the worst, but with Heath they had a puncher’s chance.

Auckland usually won these tourneys, with their brand new Gunn and Moore gear and parents who turned up in European cars, but although they boasted future Black Caps in Adam Parore and Blair Pocock, and possibly Mark Richardson too, they were savaged by Davis who reduced some to quivering, crying wrecks. I was watching on an adjacent pitch, spellbound by the carnage and staggered by how far back Hutt’s yappy wicketkeeper, future All Black Simon Mannix, was standing.

When the final day dawned it was unbeaten us (our game against Auckland was rained off, though we were on top), against undefeated them.

Cooper roused us early to go down to the nets. He had Wingnut Carroll, a Hawke Cup opening bowler and legendary local character, come in and bounce the crap out of the batters to prepare us for Heath. I knew I wasn’t going to feature in the playing XI when I didn’t get asked to face up to Wingnut, and to be honest I was relaxed about that – I’d had a lousy tournament, a run of bad form I never really broke. 

We won easily. We were lucky. It was the last day of a full-on week of cricket and Heath was spent, though legend has it that he perked up enough at the prizegiving to do some strange interpretative stuff with sausage rolls, or maybe it was the chipolatas – my memory is a bit fuzzy on that one.

Heath Davis as an age-group rep (Image: Heath Davis)

On and off-field stories about Heath became a cottage industry of their own. Everyone has a favourite. Like the time he bounced a kid called Rick McIntyre in an under-16 game and it cleared everyone for six wides. It was a short boundary, but even so!

Or the time a year later when David Lamason bowled so many bouncers at him that Heath came off at the innings break and wrote his name on his forehead in zinc. That’s what it was meant to be, except he ran out of room for a single-deck headline so it was instead:

LAMA

SON

… Only he’d done it while looking in a mirror, so he actually took to the field with:

AMAL

NOS 

painted on his forehead. 

By the time he got to under-20 level, Davis was still big and scarily fast, but we’d all grown up too. At Central Districts we had our own bully in Johnny Furlong. On a lively wicket with good pace – again, in Whanganui – we skittled Wellington for under 200 in the first innings, then found ourselves 17-5 before scraping a small lead.

I faced one ball from Heath that day and it smashed into my ribs via my glove. It ballooned in the direction of fine leg and I scurried to the other end to check for broken bones. I wasn’t sure what was the graver injustice: the single being given as leg byes, or the atrocious LBW decision I got a couple of balls later.

By the time the second innings rolled around the pitch had flattened out nicely, and for the first and only time I managed to dig in long enough to see the full range of antics he was becoming famous for.

Heath would chide himself in between deliveries, constantly berating himself in an incongruously soprano voice. He’d flap his arms around, whinny like a horse (at least I think that’s what he was doing), bowl a steady stream of no-balls and, just when you thought he was done, rip one over your shoulder from around the wicket to remind you he retained lethal power. I had the best seat in the house – especially, it should be said, at the non-striker’s end.

Some of us that played that game have remained in touch.

Even back then we all knew Heath was “different” – a catch-all term used by young males to describe any other young male whose life didn’t revolve around the twin pursuits of getting steamed and pulling chicks. It would be wrong to say cricket was an enlightened environment, but (apart from Canterbury, perhaps, where the conservative streak ran strong) being different was tolerated if not necessarily celebrated. 

Heath Davis at the Basin Reserve in 2022 (Image: Scratched)

I asked some of my former teammates for memories or anecdotes about Heath.

Our keeper, Glenn, ended up playing club cricket with him in Wellington, and remembered days when he would bowl until his feet bled. Tarz, who ended up playing some first-class cricket with Heath, said “he was a real good dude and when you sat down and talked cricket with him he knew his stuff, but it was clear he didn’t have a whole lot of love for or trust in the New Zealand set-up of that era”.

“I watched him bowl one spell in a first-class game and couldn’t believe it. Real pace. I was 12th man, so was very relaxed.”

Then, of course, there’s the story about playing while tripping on acid, a hyper-niche category of sports history that has already been the subject of a brilliant baseball documentary.

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’
Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor

I played a tiny, unmemorable part in Heath’s back story; the role he played in mine was much bigger. For me he really was, if you scroll right up to the top, a larger than life character.

I hope he reads this if only to realise there’s a bunch of us that still talk about him and remember him fondly. We might have played against better cricketers – though don’t get me wrong, Heath was a hell of a bowler – but few that have left such an impression.

When Heath Davis was 22 yards away, about to unleash another ball in your general direction, for a split-second you truly knew what it meant to feel alive.

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