Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Fine
from Newstalk zb.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Dave McCalman is a three time Paralympic medalist for New Zealand.
He was an elite able bodied basketball player, becoming the
first key to play in the Australian National League and
then taking up a scholarship at a US college, But
in his freshman year in nineteen eighty he misjudged the
depth of the water jumping into a water hole and
(00:34):
sustained serious spinal injuries. Following his disability, he moved into
able bodied basketball coaching, leading teams to national titles, before
later taking up power athletics. Just six weeks out from
his Paralympic debut at Barcelona in nineteen ninety two, they
removed his favorite pentathlon from the program and he instead
(00:56):
entered the javelin, becoming New Zealand Paralympian number eighty. He
won a javelin silver medal at the nineteen ninety six
Paralympic Games and two goals in javelin and the rest
pentathlon at the Sydney two thousand Paralympics. He made his
fourth and final Paralympic appearance in Athens in two thousand
and four. He has coached in both disability and mainstream sports,
(01:19):
including wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball. Dave mccleman recently retired
after nineteen years working for the Hallberg Foundation, but is
still very involved in sport, and he's published a book
on his life. It's called Here's to Life and All
That Jazz. Dave mcalman is with us SAR. Congrats on
the book, Dave, all that Jazz in the title? Does
(01:40):
that refer to your love of jazz music?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Hey, thanks very much for having me on mate. Well,
what an introduction? Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My mother played
around with her jazz singing in the late forties in
Wellington when she was a young girl, and pretty much
all the records in our house.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
With jazz wonderful. Well, as I said, lots to unpack.
Maybe we can start with a general look back. How
do you reflect in general terms on your career as
an elite power athlete.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well, Paralympics gave me an opportunity to fulfill my potential.
I think as an athlete there was a difference cut
short earned basketball. I really dedicated many years and hours
to improving and getting good at basketball, and when that
opportunity was removed, Paralympics gave me that opportunity. Took me
(02:34):
a little while. I had to go through some transition
of coaching and socializing through the eighties when I coached
able body basketball. But yeah, ninety two Barcelona Paralympics was
a bit of a dream really for me to be
an athlete again. So Paralympics really gave me a lot
in my life.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Is that true? About ninety two they removed pentathlon, but
they removed it almost what just a few weeks before
the games? What happened there?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
So basically they needed six athletes from five countries to
constitute an event, and the Paralympics have many events. If
you think about the different disability types and one hundred
meters and both genders, there's a lot of events. That's
a tight schedule. So yeah, once the final entries were in,
that was the call the organizing committee made. So good.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, yes, And so obviously it came back in two thousand,
which we'll get to. But you competed in the javelin
and then your first Paralympic medal, the silver and the
javelin in nineteen ninety six, tell us about.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
That good story there. Suddenly this Iranian athlete turned up
out of nowhere and was breaking world records left right
and sent it. And I'd been doing my training in
the Kaddicadi Wrestling Club with a great wrestling made of
min andy roach and we'd worked out a system that
I could throw pretty good draven javelin through the winter. Anyway,
(03:57):
I got out there and I threw the world record
and thought I was in the money, and the Iranian
with his last throw beat me by a meter and
a half. And that was the same in all of
the three field events actually, so yeah, that was this
ablem But hey, I started that medal count and got
(04:18):
a silver, and I was wrapped.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And double gold at Sydney two thousand in the javelin,
and obviously at that stage the restored pentathlon. How vivid
are you memories of Sydney two thousand, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Still very vivid. And I guess the being persistent and
staying with it, because I went back and I got
the Iranian in two thousand and I finally got the
quadriplegic pentathlin. So you know, you stay with it long enough,
it'll come to here. Very vivid great story around the javelin.
(04:52):
So Murray Halberg had been spoken to our team prior
to us leaving Balkland, and I took a lot at
what he had said about his room, gold medal and
being in the call up room. So I followed his
instructions very closely. I was the world record holder at
that time and so had he been. So it all
(05:14):
went well, all went to plan, and Ben got the
got the stadium to finally play the New Zealand national anthem.
Because that Sydney Olympics, I think it was only Rob
Woodell that got a gold.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, did right, dead right, and yeah on the out
on the water, not on the stadium. So what what
was the advice that sir Murray gave you about being
in the call room beforehand?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Basically, look at all your competitors in the eyes, you know,
steer them down. And also that there was a metaphoric
sort of a door at the end of the room
where the champions stepped through, and be prepared to lose
yourself in the event. And yeah, that sort of mental focus,
(05:58):
really love that, love that.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, that would that would make anybody want to come
out there and compete to the piece of their ability
if the Murray Helberg's giving you advice like that, what
a champion piece of advice. What happened in nineteen eighty Dave,
that led to your spinal injuries?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Youthful enthusiasm. Been out to this water hole which was
sort of in a canyon area prior with a few
of the local guys from town, and that finished my
last class, walking across the field with a Hawaiian guy
forty degrees getting very hot in the San Joaquin Valley
(06:37):
and I had to plan, let's go for a swim,
and as I say, sort of got to the spillway
and went down on my feet and dove into the water,
not thinking anything of it, and the water was so
shallow I hit my head on the bottom so instantly
(06:58):
paralyzed survival to not drown. And then the ordeal of
not having enough medical insurance. My coach was brilliant, turned
up and pretty much sergeant, you know major, got everybody
going and I ended up in Fresno Community Hospital and
(07:21):
got my surgery, which allowed me then to set up
and start working out again. And that's pretty much how
I pursued it as a physical challenge all the way through.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
But changed your life obviously completely, did it or how
long did it take for you to come to terms
with it?
Speaker 3 (07:43):
It comes and goes, you know, there's wheelchair blues ies
to call it. But about three years you pretty well
get into a fairly consistent routine and you're happy with it,
and you understand what you can do and what you
can't do, and you concentrate on what you can do.
And then I would say at seven years you've probably
unconsciously operating as a wheelchair user. And it does take
(08:08):
that time. But as I said, I think the physical
aspect of it is the focus, and that's where Paralympics
are so good, being able to get out there and
test yourself, learn from others, you know, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
You already had a tremendous work ethic in order to
get to where you got to an able bodied basketball.
Did you find that that just carried on. The work
ethic didn't disappear, and that's what allowed you to excel
as a power athlete?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Yeah, I think so. But I did spend a decade
from the eighties to the start of the nineties. I
started preparing for Barcelona at the end of nineteen nineties.
Basketball season when I coached wake it or Woman Caroline
Gray and Shelley Meads and a number of other athletes.
We beat Auckland in overtime. But so that whole eight
(09:03):
ten years, and I was in Fangada as a coach
for a couple of years when Judd Flavel and Pedal
Cameron were just starting out. Those years of coaching, I
think really gave me more understanding of what a training
program was about and what I needed to do myself,
more than I had been prior to the injury.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
And how did you choose javelin and pentathlon? I guess
it would have been more logical to go into wheelchair
rugby or wheelchair basketball. Why was it track and field?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, so wheelchair bus rugby didn't start till really nineteen nineties,
but that was what everyone done. Everybody did it in
those days. And I threw the shot in the disk
and the pentathon was because I actually tell you, through
sitting on a chair and throwing implements all day long,
it's not the most attractive sport. If you've been a
(09:53):
basketball play, you know, there's no sort of you know,
leading people into a trap and all the sort of things.
So anyway, but javelin, I just seem to have an
arm for it, basically, So I kept doing better and
better and better and better, and the Pentathlon allowed me
to have a whole one day event, which was more interesting.
(10:16):
I found that very interesting, more challenging.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Did you get as much satisfaction from coaching as you
did from competing?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Almost? Almost? Yep. I had some really good teams and
being able to you know, make positive influences in the
game to which then you would win was really rewarding.
You know, winning championships with teams very rewarding. And just
you know, I was young, I was I was twenty one.
(10:47):
I was coaching New Aukland number twenty team, and so
I still see a few of the guys that we're
almost the same age now.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Incredible.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, yeah, I loved it. I loved the coaching.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Interesting you said almost. I've heard that from so many
elite athletes who have gone into coaching, and they get
they get almost a buzz of doing it themselves day,
but just not quite, just not quite. Would that be
the case with you?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Yeah? Yeah, you know it's shooting that winning shot. You
know that that's you. You can't take that away. From
players and yeah, just the effort to just being in
the grind and with the other teammates. That's superb basketball.
A well, you know, I'm so dedicated. I still watch
all the NBL games. You keep up with it.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
What was your work with the Hellberg Foundation What did
that consist of?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Mainly, the focus of the foundation and Murray's trustee early
on was to give young people with disabilities an opportunity
to get involved in sport and recreation and that's what
they do, and they do it in different ways. We
did it within schools, within communities. I'm trying to break
(12:04):
down barriers. And probably the best thing that came along
was the Independence Games that were run by ccs back
in the day were folding and Halberg took them up
and created the Halberg Games for about ten years twelve
years now and that is just a wonderful festival of
(12:25):
sport and community. People from all over the country come
together and there's just smiles everywhere. The parents are getting
a lot out of it just seeing their children achieved
they hadn't seen before at school settings. So yeah, that's
basically the co puper there is to get young physically
(12:48):
disabled people into being active, outstanding.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
So what takes up most of your time these days?
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I'm on the way he beat school board, a hand cycled,
trying and keep myself fit, trying to keep you know,
this aging process in theay are. We all got two
grandsons living with us, trying to help them with their
basketball and sport. And I've got a little acre of
land here that keeps us busy.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Brilliant, brilliant stuff. And you're happy with the way the
book came out.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah, Tommy did a great job. Good journalist has known
me since I was fourteen in the legendary Newtown Stadium
in Wellington, and just the camaraderie, the friendship we built
over the four years it took. And yeah, he didn't
want it to be complicated less was more in a
(13:40):
very sort of jazz sort of feel. Yes, and yeah
it's come out really well. Everybody says, great read, it's
not complex, it's a simple read and a lot of
good stories outstanding.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Well, you've told us a bunch of good ones today,
Dave Look, thanks so much for sharing your journey with us.
Congrats on the book and all the best for all
the best for what lies there, I get the feeling
there's still much more to come in your life.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I hope, so, Jason, if I just say, if anybody
wants a book and they can get it online at
Copypress or Wheelers or Yeah or the Why He Beach Hardwind.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Brilliant, Here's the Life and All That Jazz by Dave McElman.
Dave again, thanks for your time, all the best for
the festive season pleaser.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to you.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Too, Dave. Dave mckelman, what a man. Three time Paralympic medalists,
four time Paralympian and well by the sounds of a
guy who has squeezed every ounce out of his life.
His book is called Here's the Life and all That Jazz,
and Yeah, it's a good read and what a top blake,
what a good man.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
For more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to news talks that'd be weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.