Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

The multi-talented teacher, national award-winning coach who's inspired generations 

Ask a room jam packed with locals if they know Val Cooney and the odds are high that the  resounding "yes" will come close to raising the roof. 

Val will have either taught, coached, mentored or entertained them over the 60-plus years Rotorua’s been her home.  

To be strictly accurate there've been a couple of breaks away, but not of significant length. 

This is where she’s raised her four kids - each  as highly achieving as their mum. 

Their successes are unsurprising. Val Cooney has always strived for excellence in herself, her family and those she's taught and coached. 

In 2008 she was crowned supreme winner of the 2008 Watties Volunteer Coach of the Year. 

She was brought up to aim high. Her mother encouraged her with inspirational verses  and motivational quotes. Now in her 80s Val remains inspired by them. She frequently refers to them.

Sports all rounder,  teacher,  pianist

An all-round sportswoman, she taught phys ed (PE) for years at Girls' High, as well as general subjects at primary, intermediate and high schools across the area.

Her teaching career spanned six decades and three generations.  

She's been a gymnastics coach seemingly forever. 

Until recently she was coaching youngsters at St Michael's.

She'd still be at it if a surgeon's scalpel hadn't put the brakes on such a vigorous activity.

"Vigorous" is a word that’s tailor-made for Val.

She may have reached octogenarian status but you won't find her welded into an arm chair, staring at the telly.

She's one of life's "doers". 

A self-taught pianist, she plays for the U3A (University of the Third Age) Grey Warblers group, at Cantabria sing-alongs and the CT Club.

Quizzes and cryptic crosswords keep her razor sharp mind well honed and 8-Ball has become this dedicated sportswoman’s newest pursuit.

She plays at the CT Club with her good mate Kevin Allsworth.

They met through the Alzheimer's support group they joined when their late spouses were residents at the Ngongotaha Care Village.

Val lost her husband Denis to the memory-robbing disease four years ago.

They were on the cusp of their diamond wedding anniversary when he died.

It was their joint love of musical theatre that brought the Cooneys together.

Both were chorus members when the operatic society staged Oklahoma! in 1962.

Val was also an on stage regular in the RSA's Tin Hat Club's side-slitting shows.

That's the skeleton edition of action woman Val Cooney's  life and times. 

The best possible person to put flesh on those bones is Val herself. Her recall of times past is encyclopaedic.

"All these memories are flooding back."

Seeing stranger hugging mum 

As someone who relishes life’s funny side Val's earliest memory is laced with her trademark humour.

"We were living on Tauranga’s Fifth Avenue.

"I looked out the front door and there was this strange man in a khaki uniform hugging my mother.

"That was the first time I remember meeting my father.

"He was a dental technician who'd spent the war at the Trentham military camp working on soldiers' teeth before they went overseas.

"All I knew about him was he sent me telegrams on my birthday."

Miraculously, Val still has them.

They mark the start of her collection of scrapbooks bulging with newspaper clippings of her family’s involvement in what seems to be every organisation and sport going.

Her brother Ron Slow's name appears as frequently as his sister's.

He played cricket for Bay of Plenty and was a star member of Rotorua’s Arawa Club.

Only Slow by name 

Val has a good giggle when she reveals her maiden name was Slow. 

"Slow by name but not by nature, that was us."

Never a truer word . . .  

The childhood she talks of was idyllic for a kid with beaches at each end of Fifth Avenue.

"I grew up on those beaches.   

"We spent many many days sunbathing at the Mount. 

"We'd go to school horribly sunburnt and have competitions to see who could peel off the most skin."

She reflects that it's no wonder so many of her generation now suffer from skin cancer.

When not at the beach or school Val was immersed in music.

Violin, The Messiah

"Our parents were very keen for us to be involved in music. 

"As a family we'd sing around the piano.

"My brother was a lot better player than me. 

"I learnt the violin.

"When I was 11 or 12 I played second violin in the Tauranga Orchestra.

"One year we performed The Messiah.

"Everyone stood up for the Hallelujah Chorus.

"I felt very important that I was sitting down.

"That was a major moment in my young life."

Thriving on challenge

When Val entered Tauranga College it was co-ed, but when it changed to a boys' only school she became a foundation pupil at Tauranga Girls' College.

Mad keen on sport, playing with and against boys galvanised her determination to win.

She thrives on challenge. 

In a Tauranga College cricket match against its Te Awamutu counterpart she took seven wickets for seven runs in the first innings and six for eight in the second.

That was achieved playing with a sprained ankle.

"I certainly wasn't going to let that stop me," says this gutsy woman whose motivational mantra is "Never give up". 

Val Slow was 15 when she was named captain of Tauranga Girls' College's 1st XI.

But before she was to lead her team onto the pitch for the first time there was a cricketing calamity.

"We were having a practice game against the boys' second XI. 

"I was the wicketkeeper and ended up in hospital with a broken nose.

Failing, passing school cert

"We were to sit school cert the very next week.

"I failed it that year."

But only by four marks.  

She aced it at her second attempt and passed University Entrance first pop. 

"By then we'd moved schools and there were no boys to distract me."

As well as cricket, she represented her school on the tennis court and at athletics. 

"I won the 80 metres hurdles at the BOP secondary school athletics comps. That was exciting."

A fireball on the basketball court, centre was her main playing position. 

"I was too short for the defence but I was third goalie occasionally." 

Nine a-side teams had yet to be replaced by netball’s squads of seven.

Schoolgirl basketball umpire 

In her final school year Val became a fully-fledged basketball umpire. 

To the best of anyone's knowledge she was the county's youngest. 

Her qualifying game was tension filled.

"It was between Matamata and Rotorua. 

"When I blew the final whistle it was a draw so it went into extra time.

Val has no recollection of which team eventually won.

"I was too busy concentrating on passing my umpire's exam."

Surely she must have been nervous as heck? 

Her reply typifies her logic. 

"I had to control the game. I didn't have time to be nervous." 

The year she captained Mansfield House its trophy cabinet was  crammed with the school's major sporting awards.

Teachers' nightmare

Throughout school sport was her driving force.

 "I used to eat my lunch during classes so I could play sport in the breaks.

"When I became a teacher I used to tell kids 'You can't do anything I haven’t done before you'.

"I was a bit naughty at school. I must have been the teachers' nightmare.

"I wasn’t a shining light at maths but went on to teach it later."

From the time she was five Val had decided on a teaching career.

"I'd sit my dolls in a row and play school with my cousins."  

Her first teaching role was at Sunday School. She was 11 or 12. 

She went to Ardmore Teachers Training College straight from school.

"Ardmore was a wonderful place. We lived in a hostel at the old military camp.

"We had these lovely red blazers and thought ourselves very important.

"On Friday nights we'd get the train into town [Auckland]. 

"I'd waltz up to the ticket office with my Ardmore blazer on, ask for a half fare and get away with it.

"At weekends we'd hitch-hike home."

Women's rugby, gym coach

She notched up a century the first time she played cricket for Ardmore at the Auckland Domain.

"I hit a six, it landed in the middle of a men's game.

"They all clapped."

Soon after she was in the Auckland women's under 21 team. 

 Coaching gymnastics came into the frame at Ardmore.

She notched up a brace of medals and coached at the Clevedon club.

Ardmore also introduced her to rugby.

Val was playing it long before women’s teams were officially recognised.

One of those scrapbooks of hers has a picture of her ferociously  fending off a tackle at the Tauranga Domain, circa 1960.

Her recollection of that oval ball encounter was that she played in boots borrowed from a bloke on the sidelines.

When most of her Ardmore cohort moved on to become probationary primary school teachers, Val Slow headed for Dunedin Training College to specialise in PE. 

Who'd have expected less? 

She was an Otago basketball rep the only year Otago won the national championships.

A fellow team member was one Lois Muir, now Dame Lois, the honour awarded for her services to netball. 

Rotorua arrival, relay win

Val was 20 when she arrived at Rotorua Girls' High.

 She quickly established her credentials when the relay team of Kahira Morrison, Del Aratema, Sonya Kennedy and Leilani Grant trounced the field at the Waikato-Bay of Plenty secondary schools sports champs.

"I was really proud of that. It was a great achievement by those girls. We worked hard for it."
Val based their winning baton change-over technique on the method perfected by East Germany at the 1960 Rome Olympics. 

Outside school she represented Rotorua at softball and netball.

Peter Snell delays wedding

She hadn't been in Rotorua long when she met heavy machinery operator Denis Cooney. 

When they married in Tauranga, on what Val swears was the wettest day of the year, their wedding had a late start.

It was the groom who had to shoulder the blame.

"He and my brother Ron, who was his best man, had stopped off at the Tauranga Domain to see Peter Snell run.

"It was typical of them both." 

After their marriage the couple set up home at Te Mahoe.

Denis was driving bulldozers on the Matahina Dam's construction site. 

Val taught at the small rural school.

From there it was on to Auckland where Denis worked on Mt Smart Stadium. 

Children, return to teaching

Their first three children were born with only a year between  them.

"I told Denis we had to stop having babies or we'd never be able to afford to do anything."

The children were still small when Girls' High principal Sheila Peacock asked Val to return to teaching.

"I said I was too busy looking after the kids. She said 'We have a thousand baby sitters here'."

Val took her at her word. 

All went well until daughter Nicky, then about three, disappeared.

"The whole school was out looking for her. 

"She was eventually found sitting happily on Mrs Peacock's knee while she talked to a VIP visitor." 

Family's achievements

Nicky's the family's Commonwealth Games diver twice over, competing at the Edinburgh and Auckland games. There her three metre dive won New Zealand a bronze medal. 

Her mother had insisted she learn to swim after she fell out of a boat on Lake Okareka. 

Son Greg swam competitively but gave it up for rugby.

He was also a gun athlete, a whiz kid at maths and head prefect at Boy's High.

Eldest daughter Gayle trained at the New Zealand ballet school.

From her mass of memorabilia Val ferrets out an invitation to Government House in Wellington to see Gayle dance there.

"I had to ask Rotorua MP Paul East's wife what to wear." 

Youngster daughter Amanda won a jazz dance scholarship to the Edge Performing Arts School in LA.  

She's also an alumna of Sydney's Tanya Pearson Ballet Academy and has danced in Japan.

On the work front they've all done their mother proud.

Gayle's a legal executive with a local law firm.

Greg's extensive engineering work CV includes Australia's Glebe Island bridge build and placing the roof "just so" on the Sydney Olympic Stadium (now Stadium Australia).

Nicky and Amanda are in the police, the latter in an admin roll in Tauranga.

Inspector Nicky Cooney is area commander of the Eastern Bay of Plenty police district.

Supreme volunteer coach of the year

Ask Val why she considers her offspring have become so successful and she says she and their dad made sure they gave them opportunities to excel.

"And we always encouraged them to give of their best as my parents did with me."

On the topic of giving of one's best Val Cooney was the supreme winner of the 2008 Watties Volunteer Coach of the Year award. 

She'd already been named Lifetime Volunteer Coach of the Year.

Val being typically Val, she swapped the top prize of a $5000 trip to Sydney for cash so she could buy gym equipment for the school she was then teaching at.

Val didn’t go totally prizeless. Family and friends dined on the sponsor's products for a year. 

So how does Val Cooney sum up her lifetime’s dedication to sport and nurturing youngsters to give the best of themselves? 

"Bringing children to their best has been very rewarding. 

"I love seeing people achieving. I love success.

"When I look at our women rugby players and their successes I get a wee bit weepy.

"I get very annoyed with all the silly things that are going on in the world.

"We don't need all this nonsense, we don't need all this fighting.

"Kids are kids, people are people.

"Let's treat us all the same."