SPORTS AWARDS: Inductee Robertson: 'we just did it'

Hawke's Bay basketball legend Di Robertson struggled to comprehend the attitudes of those in the next generation.
The former Tall Ferns captain who represented New Zealand from 1978-84 remembers when she was coaching Hawke's Bay's BP Bears national women's league side from 1992-'94.
"I couldn't come to terms with players not being at training. That wasn't heard of in our day," Robertson told SportToday.
Robertson went to the then Hawks men's national league team's coach James Logan to ask why she couldn't get the Bears performing like the Hawke's Bay teams she captained to seven New Zealand championship titles during 10 attempts from 1978-'87.
Logan told Robertson she led "an exceptional team."
"There will never be a group like it," said Logan.
Robertson had never looked upon her Bay teams in that manner.
"We wanted to win ... and we just did it. It was just normal for us to train hard with all that enthusiasm and still have a job and still go to school."
Considering the compliment from Logan and Robertson's contributions to Hawke's Bay and New Zealand basketball, it was appropriate she should join former All Black Norm Hewitt as this year's inductees to Hawke's Bay's Sports Hall of Fame.
Both will be inducted at the UnisonFibre Hawke's Bay Sports Awards at Taradale's Pettigrew-Green Arena on May 29.
"It's great to be the first basketballer and a female as well. I've got to thank the people who nominated me and those who selected me," said Robertson who is still a Basketball Hawke's Bay director and chairperson of the player coach development management group.
A second generation Tall Fern (her mother Dot Leitch also played for New Zealand) Robertson won a bronze medal with the Tall Ferns at the 1983 Commonwealth Basketball Tournament. While this was a career highlight Robertson pointed out her biggest was playing in front of 25,000 fans against Taiwan in the opening game of the 1981 William Jones Inter-Continental Cup in Taiwan.
"Spectators would throw coins at the Taiwan players if they weren't doing well," she recalled.
An account manager with Aon New Zealand, Robertson, played more than 50 games for New Zealand and more than 300 for Hawke's Bay or Napier representative teams.
She said it has been disappointing to watch basketball lose its status as a major sport in New Zealand in recent years. The point guard is eager to see other provinces copy Hawke's Bay and place a major emphasis on growing the game from the grassroots levels.
Robertson agreed it shouldn't be too long before Hawke's Bay has a national women's league side again.
She rates fellow former Tall Fern and current Hawks assistant coach Kirstin Daly as the best female player she has seen come through the Bay's age-group system albeit with some assistance from a stint in the United States.
Fellow members of her best starting five in Bay teams she has played in are Kathie Dimock, Jo Richards, Lynne Pugh and Kura Panoho. Sport Hawke's Bay chief executive Colin Stone said Robertson, like Hewitt, has made a significant contribution to sport in the region and performed successfully internationally.
There have been 29 inductees into the Hawke's Bay Hall of Fame including All Black legends George Nepia and Kel Tremain.
Others include cricketer Ian Smith, golfer Stuart Jones and jockey Jimmy Cassidy. World champion and Olympic rowers Caroline and Georgina Evers Swindell were last year's inductees.