Award for coach who overcame setbacks

Auriol Rooke, who has been given Nan Nevin Master Teacher status, has taught thousands of children to swim over 32 years. Photo / Natalie Slade

A swimming teacher who finds it difficult to swim and is allergic to chlorine has been awarded swim coaching's most prestigious award for 32 years of work.

Auriol Rooke was given Nan Nevin Master Teacher status by the Swim Coaches and Teachers of New Zealand for teaching thousands of children.

"I have never in my life freestyled and bilateral breathed.

"I can lay in the pool and do all the drills the kids do up and down the pool, but I've never actually physically swum a whole length of freestyle."

The oldest of six, Mrs Rooke, 62, said she "always" had her head out of the water.

Growing up in rural Northland, she would take her brothers and sisters to the creek where she was "always headcounting, or holding or watching them".

"I got them all going, they all had their heads under and were like fish."

But Mrs Rooke's career as a swim teacher was almost cut short when she was diagnosed with chlorine poisoning.

"I just went down and down and down. I ended up in Middlemore with bronchial pneumonia."

She had been living in Pukekohe for two years before she discovered the town's UV-treated pool. She has been teaching children to swim there for two years after spending the previous 30 at other swimming pools around the country.

Mrs Rooke said receiving the Nan Nevin Master Teacher Award was "the ultimate".

Nan Nevin, who died of cancer in 1998, taught swimming at the Cameron Pools in Auckland.

National manager of SwimMagic, Stephen Peterson, said Mrs Rooke was creating a similar legacy to Mrs Nevin and did an "outstanding" job.

"She's a thoroughly passionate lady who's dedicated her life to swimming."