At the top of your game

By ESTELLE SARNEY

Nigel Roe doesn't consider himself particularly sporty, but his job sees him running onto some of the most famous rugby fields in the world with a full-time professional team.

The 33-year-old New Zealander is the physiotherapist and medical co-ordinator for the Saracens rugby team in London.

Before that he spent four years with the Fiji rugby team in the lead up to the 1999 World Cup.

"There is pressure to make the right calls about very expensive players for their sake and the sake of the team, and also pressure to get them back on the field so the team can perform as well as it can.

"But that gives the job an edge. I'm loving it. I get the chance to work with some guys I've thought of as legends, and to work in sport at this level is fantastic. The season might stretch to 10 months of the year, but then I can take two months off in summer to travel around Europe."

Roe's career to date is an example of where a job in the sporting industry can take you. Because sport is universal, the skills of your chosen job within it can be applied anywhere in the world.

John Boyd of the Hillary Commission says that the sport and leisure industry in New Zealand is growing in line with world trends.

The commission estimates that full-time jobs have increased from 38,000 to 43,000 in the past two years, but Boyd cautions that those jobs are thinly spread across a wide sector, with most entry level salaries struggling to break $30,000 per annum.

"There are hundreds of graduates spilling out of techs and universities all over the country with sport diplomas and degrees, finding out that if they don't take a management or admin job for $20,000, someone else will just to get their foot in the door."

But if you're doing this for the pay, "you've got the wrong idea," says Mark Sayers, biomechanist to the All Blacks. Sayers did his training in Australia and volunteered his expertise for free to the Brumbies for three years to build up his CV.

Now he spends half the year in New Zealand working with the All Blacks and the NPC sides, and the other half lecturing in Australia.

"I'm like a people engineer," says Sayers. "Biomechanics is the merging of anatomy with physics to work out how to move most efficiently. At All Black level it's about finding those extra centimetres that might make the difference in players scoring a try."

Sport shoe manufacturers also employ biomechanists to help design shoes that enable an athlete's body give its best performance.

Then there's the ground on which those athletes perform. Eden Park groundskeeper Blair Christiansen, age 27, has the best seat in the park to watch every cricket and rugby match played there, even if he also has to witness his hard work being trampled over.

"Cricket pitches take double the time of rugby fields - I work 10 hours a day, seven days a week at the height of the cricket season. You get a good tan."

Christiansen left school a keen golfer, and started his career with a three-year greenkeeping apprenticeship at Mangawhai golf course in Northland.

He did extra papers in cricket and rugby ground-keeping through the Turf Culture Institute, and went on to work for the Cornwall cricket club in Auckland for four years.

He's been at Eden Park for 18 months.

Groundskeeping apprentices might earn only $25,000, he says. Head curators of stadiums can fetch about $70,000, though it might take 15 years to reach that position.

One of the biggest growth areas in the sport industry is the gym sector, and the fitness instructors and personal instructors it employs.

Norm Phillips of Les Mills gyms, the third of which is due to open in New Lynn this month, says he requires job applicants to already have an industry qualification such as one of the sport diplomas or degrees run by Auckland University, Auckland University of Technology and Unitec.

Unitec, for example, offers a two-year diploma in sport and fitness education, for $4000 a year; Auckland University has the more specialised degree in sport and exercise science for $2000-$3000 a year; and AUT runs separate fitness instructor and personal trainer modules in addition to its diploma and degree courses.

Phillips then puts Les Mills fitness instructors through another six-month course while they work at the gym for 30 hours a week for about $20,000 a year. Personal trainers are self-employed. They charge $50-$80 an hour.

It is possible to make really big money in sport without being an athlete, and the field with the most potential is racing.

Working at the TAB might only make you $25,000 annually, slightly more than a stablehand and slightly less than a trainer. But John Wheeler of the Trainers Association says that the top two per cent of trainers can break $1 million a year. Not bad if, as in most cases, you started by mucking out stables.

Sports Diary


Take your pick ... you might be barely active, but love sport and want to work in the industry. The wide range of jobs now available include:

Groundskeeper


Physiotherapist


Sport psychologist


Biomechanist


Coach


Personal trainer


Gym fitness instructor


Nutrition and exercise consultant


Sport manager, administrator or marketer


Accident Compensation case manager


Occupational Safety and Health consultant


Medical products representative


Marketer, sporting equipment companies


Recreation centre manager


School sports co-ordinator


Physical education teacher


TAB customer server


Stablehand


Racehorse trainer