It is possible that Jonah Lomu was better known worldwide than any New Zealander at any time, even Sir Edmund Hillary. Rugby correspondents have often told us that here in New Zealand we had no idea of the extent of Jonah's fame. He was feted everywhere rugby was played and gave his image to the game. But he was even bigger than that. His face and name became recognised beyond rugby, as familiar to many young sports fans as a Michael Jordan or a Muhammad Ali. His image adorned the walls of sportsgoods stores and the pages of fashionable magazines. He was a superstar.
But to see or hear him in New Zealand, you would not have guessed it. In the best tradition of our heroes, he kept his feet on the ground. He probably liked the fact that he was appreciated here for what he truly was: a freakishly talented rugby player whose career was cruelly restricted by a kidney disease. It must have been hard for someone so robust to be hooked up to a dialysis machine three times a week for six hours on end.
In the precious few years he was able to play at his prime, he was so good that he commands a place on the left wing in just about everybody's team of all-time greats. He combined the pace of a winger with the size of a forward and presented a fearsome prospect for a tackler.
As a schoolboy in Wesley College's first XV he was literally unstoppable. Playing at second five-eighth he turned a televised national secondary schools championship match into near farce, running through the opposition to score from almost every restart.