Bill Kini a heavyweight in more than boxing

SITTING on a bus, travelling the much acclaimed Ninety Mile Beach route to North Cape, Bill Kini provided one of those ``eureka'' moments. Then serving, as he had been for more than a decade, as team masseuse with the Northland rugby team, Bill took a moment on the team bus to converse with a sports reporter who had shimmied his way into a seat.

Bill reached into his pocket and handed over a sheet of paper with a simple: ``You might find this interesting.''

It was the conclusion of a doctorate thesis paper on Maori tangi, in particular the origins of the three-day traditions attached to tangi.

The first conversation was followed thereafter by another over dinner where debate wandered from religion and spirituality to death and the essence of life. Until then Bill Kini occupied a certain corner of characterisation.

A former Empire (now Commonwealth) Games heavyweight boxing champion, Auckland title-winning club rugby player, sports masseuse, father of four heavily sports-oriented children and Northland sports icon was not supposed to spend his free time reading conclusions to rather weighty literary documents. But _ as it happens _ Bill Kini offered far more than the ordinary, as evidenced by a huge turnout at his funeral in Whangarei this week.

They were all there, the sportsmen who benefited most from his love of natural healing and massage techniques, the former teammates and rivals, the pig farmers with whom he bought and sold animals, the mokopuna who adored his mana and the friends who admired his grace.

Born in Winton, Southland, in 1937, Bill Kini was of Ngai Tahu blood, one of three children. Educated in a small Southland rural town called Pahia, it was in Ohai on the West Coast that the first signs of his sporting prowess emerged.

By the time he attended Southland Technical in Invercargill to complete his schooling, he was a dedicated rugby player. But it wasn't until he was ``spotted'' as a potential boxer that his real passion was ignited.

According to family legend, Bill's boxing potential was revealed when, as a raw 16-year-old trainee coal miner, he stood his ground in a classic stand-off over his stolen lunch.

What developed was a lifetime love of pugilism, a fascination that took him ultimately to national acclaim.

By 1959, then aged 22, Bill Kini scored the first of seven New Zealand heavyweight boxing titles and was established as the Australasian champion. His boxing pinnacle came in 1966 when he won the Empire Games heavyweight gold medal in Jamaica.

Four years earlier (1962), Bill had met and married Jan, a union that continued until his death and produced four children, Brad, Jason, Ferne and Andre. It wasn't until 1980 that the Kini family arrived in Northland though, working for a concrete company called Humes.

It didn't take long for Bill and Jan, with four children in tow, to establish themselves in the community of Kamo.

Bill joined the Kamo rugby team, eventually became a coach then, in later years, was inevitably involved in every senior club rugby campaign as a ``team strapper''.

His knowledge of sport, unrelenting training ethic and demanding sporting ethical code made him a pillar of the Kamo rugby scene. It was when he transferred his massage skills to the Northland rugby team that Bill's influence really started to blossom though. Bill was part of the Northland set-up from the early 1990s until ill-health forced him to step aside some 15 years later. By then he had been part of the successful Northland second-division campaign in 1996, had influenced players like Charles Going, Glenn Taylor, David Holwell and Norman Berryman and was regarded more like a kaumatua than simply the team masseuse.

In quiet moments, Bill might offer a glimpse of his boxing past, telling of his epic gold medal match in Jamaica, but more often than not he talked with noted pride of his Gallaher Shield Auckland club rugby title win alongside players like All Blacks Mac Herewini and Waka Nathan though.

Through it all a palpable sense of humility and grace coupled with that ever-present intimidating history of personal sporting achievement made Bill Kini assume stature that appeared to be more than the sum of his parts. Which is why this former sports reporter should never have been surprised to be mixed _ some 36 years after Bill won that gold medal _ in a theological debate with a heavyweight ... a heavyweight in more than boxing, it turns out.

Bill Kini died, with his wife, children and grandchildren at his bedside, of complications from a cancerous tumour on his spine. He is survived by his wife, four children and seven grandchildren._Tim Eves