Steven Adams: Shades Of Oklahoma Blue – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

A great basketball camp with the Kiwi star

By Angelo Robinson

The New Zealand Basketball Academy held the Steven Funaki Adams Basketball Camp on Sunday 17 August at the ASB Arena in Kilbirnie in Wellington. And what a turnout it was – 350+ student athletes of the future attended this one-day camp,with all twelve courts at the ASB Arena full.

Special Guests of honour from Steven Adams NBA Team OKC – Oklahoma City General Manager Sam Presti and Oklahoma City Assistant Coach Mark Bryant witnessed a sea of OKC shirts in little old Wellington! They were all blown away by the players doing the haka for them.

What an introduction to New Zealand and what a welcome!!!

Kapiti players in the mix

Several Kapiti players across all age groups attended the camp with

the chance to learn new skills to improve their game
the opportunity to meet Steven Adams.

Everyone had a fantastic time.

A huge highlight was that all players who attended the camp receive their own Oklahoma City t-shirt and Steven Adams autographed them all.

A great success

The camp ran from 9.00 am to 3.00 pm and at the end of the last session there were lots of tired and happy players with big smiles all round.

(Click to enlarge the photo of Angelo and a young Kapiti player with the very tall Steven Adams!)

(KIN extends its congratulations to Angelo who recently won a civic award for outstanding volunteer work in the community. This is well deserved recognition of Angelo’s tireless work over many years for basketball on the Kapiti Coast. )

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100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.