Dave Norris

Dave Norris, one of the most popular of New Zealand sportsmen, was an international athlete from 1958-74. He specialised in the long jump and triple jump, but also found time to play 31 games of basketball for New Zealand. Norris, born on the North Shore in 1939, competed at five Commonwealth Games, winning a silver and a bronze medal. He also represented New Zealand at the 1960 Olympics.

When he was five he was diagnosed with osteo-chronditis, a bone and joint disease, which meant he was in and out of casts for 18 months. “I’m still not sure how they cured it, but I ate eight raw eggs with milk each week, and to this day I can’t stomach eggs without tomato sauce,” he said.

He joined a local athletics club a few years later at the urging of Les Mills and became inspired by the training disciplines of Yvette and Roy Williams.

At 17 he made a New Zealand team to the Australian athletics championship and placed 3rd in the long jump.

His first Empire Games was in Cardiff in 1958, when he was only 18. He was one of the survivors of a nightmare three-day trip by plane from Auckland to London, during which half the team fell seriously ill.

He finished 8th in the long jump in Cardiff with a leap of (7.15m) 23ft 5½in. In the triple jump at Cardiff, Norris snatched the bronze medal with a leap of 15.45m (50ft 8¼in). Perhaps Norris’s versatility is exemplified by the fact that he was named in the New Zealand 4 x 100m relay team, though it subsequently did not start in its heat.

Norris had a different return in the 1962 Perth Empire Games, when he took the silver medal in the long jump with 7.74m (25ft 4¼in), pipping Wellesley Clayton of Jamaica by 1cm. He’d led the competition for five of the six rounds. In the triple jump in Perth he was 6th with 15.4m (50ft 6½in).

In the heat of Kingston, Jamaica, in 1966, Norris was 5th in the triple jump in 15.54m (50ft 11½iin), though far behind the winner, Welshman Lynn Davies, the Olympic champion, who nearly jumped out of the pit with his 7.99m leap. In the long jump, Norris was 7th with 7.46m (24ft 6¼in).

In Edinburgh in 1970, Norris was still competing in both disciplines. He was only 11th in the triple jump with a somewhat disappointing 14.46m, but performed better in the long jump, where his 7.64m effort placed him 5th.

In Christchurch in his fifth Commonwealth Games, Norris contested only the triple jump, where he was still competitive, finishing 6th with a best leap of 15.41m, almost exactly the same distance he’d jumped as a Games novice way back in Cardiff.

At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Norris was well below his best. He had jumps of 6.91m, 7.02m and 7.04m in the long jump, which placed him in 32nd of the 49 competitors. Only the top 12 qualified for another three jumps. In the triple jump, he had a foul, 13.78m and 14.30m, which placed him 36th and well outside the qualifying distance.

Norris won a total of 26 national titles – 8 in the long jump from 1960-71 (he often had stiff competition from Bob Thomas in the long jump) and 18 in the triple jump from 1957-77.

In the New Zealand all-time lists, Norris’s best long jump of 7.83m, set in 1967, still places him 6th. His best triple jump of 15.94m, set in 1965, places him 5th.

After retiring from competitive athletics in 1978, Norris worked as a coach and was an official at several Games.

Norris spent most of his working life as a school teacher in the Auckland area, teaching at Avondale College, Waiuku College and Kelston Boys’ High School before becoming deputy principal at Rangitoto College and principal at Glenfield College.

He was part of a team who, led by Sir Graeme Avery, created the Millennium Institute of Sport and Health on Auckland's North Shore. At one point he coached the Harbour Heat national league basketball team. He also had a spell as chief executive of North Harbour Basketball in Auckland.

At other times, he was a magazine editor and in 1988 commentator for TVNZ at the Seoul Olympics.

Dave Norris was awarded the ONZM in 2002.