No. 7: Adam Parore (Part One)

We talk whakapapa, growing up inside the game, the power of teams, business, John Graham and the youth of today.

When I first floated the idea of an interview with Adam, I received a phone call that very day. “JP, it’s Adam. I love your idea.” And so began an unexpected, animated discussion about the merits of reflection and reconnection. I say unexpected because I had only played with Adam on an internal tour when I was 17 and against him on a handful of occasions for Otago. He will laugh at this - but he was nothing like I thought he’d be. I recalled him as an unusually competitive player on the field and the mercurial Maverick off it. I came off the phone call, perplexed but energised.

When we spoke next, Adam was enjoying some time out on his own in a bach on his ancestral lands in the Hokianga. He mentioned that Christmas was always a difficult time, and he seemed tired after a long, demanding year. But as we talked, he warmed - he later suggested our discussion had “shaken loose a lot of old memories that were buried down deep.” And while those old memories resurfaced, Adam’s tūpuna [ancestors] looked down at us from the walls - his great grandfather Parore Te Āwha [ariki/paramount chief of his Te Roroa iwi/tribe] on one wall and Kūkupa on the other: “Listening to us, keeping an eye on me as always.” We talked into the night.

What drew you to the game?

I didn't have much choice to be honest. I played softball in Lower Hutt and we moved to Auckland when I was nine. I went to a middle class school in Epsom and they didn't play softball, so I just started playing cricket and I was just better than everybody else. But I didn’t really like the game for a long time. I didn't really find cricket. It found me and, over time, I learned to love it. Over time, it becomes a part of you, but it wasn't love at first sight, that's for sure.

Dad played a little when he was younger, but when he started playing for The President's team at Cornwall [Auckland], my family became more involved in the club. Because they were there all day, they figured they may as well do something. In the end, Mum ran a lunch bar at Cornwall for many years and Dad ran the bar. Those years at Cornwall Cricket Club were probably the happiest times for our family.

My dad owned a car yard on Great North Road. During the school holidays, I used to go and work for him. I got five bucks a day - 25 bucks a week was a lot of money for a ten year old. In the morning, I would wash the cars, chamois them all down, give them a rinse, clear the mail, pick up morning tea and help Dad around the yard. After lunch, I used to go up to Wallace and Webb [a sports store owned by Merv Wallace, ex-New Zealand player and coach] on Symonds Street and hang around. That's where I met Martin Crowe and Grant Fox [an All Black great who became Wallace’s son-in-law]. Martin was probably 19. I used to hang around in the lunchroom, and talk to Greg [Wallace, Merv’s son], who was a very big influence on my career, and Merv, of course, who taught me how to play. I became very much a part of that family. I grew up on their shop floor.

We discussed the need for boys, especially, to have mentors through their teenage years.

You need some heroes, right? Heroes who are not too far out of reach. One of my strongest memories is playing at Cornwall Park as a young kid. That was my backyard. After school, I'd either catch the bus straight to Cornwall and train there all night, or stop at Maungakiekie, grab my gear and walk across the farm. On weekends, the Premiers would start at 11 o'clock, at the tail end of kids' cricket. There was that transition period, where the juniors were playing and the Premiers were warming up, where mums and dads were picking up the kids. That was where I met Mark Greatbatch for the first time. And then I ended up in the Premiers. I played my first game when I was 12 against Ellerslie.

What?

My first ball in senior cricket was from Devon Malcolm [England fast bowler]. My first ball in Test cricket was from Devon Malcolm seven years later. I started training with the Premier side when I was 11. I would give throwdowns and hang around, same as I did at Wallace and Webb. I got to know Peter Webb, who was playing for New Zealand at the time, predominantly as a batsman, but he also kept wicket. He saw some promise in me and asked me to come along to senior training so he could work with me. I used to help out with all the fielding drills and be an extra pair of hands.

A pattern developed. When I started at Cornwall I was the only guy who hadn't played first-class cricket. When I made the Auckland side, I was the only one who hadn’t played Test cricket. I was always the only one who hadn’t played at the next level, but it was never long before I made the progression. I remember first going to Auckland senior training when I was 15.

I rarely played with kids. The only time I played with people my own age was in tournaments, but I was small physically so that was always a good leveller. My wicketkeeping was at senior level from the time I was 12 or 13, so that was never an issue. But I wasn’t strong enough, physically, with my batting. I didn’t develop and didn’t really make any runs until the end of fifth form [Year 11]. I was smaller and didn’t get much opportunity to bat, but when I started to make some runs, the floodgates opened. I didn’t play school cricket in my final year [Year 13] - I was playing senior cricket.

I suggested most twelve year olds would not have the courage or mental strength to play senior men’s cricket.

I’m just trying to think back to how it felt. I remember it was always pretty exciting. I remember being nervous at times, but I don't think I ever felt overawed or out of my depth. I had some good men around me. Essentially, I had a group of awesome big brothers - Jeff Crowe at first slip - who were in their mid to late 20s, playing representative cricket for Auckland and higher. Good players in their own right but super supportive and desperate for me to do well. They treated me like their kid brother. Because of the relationship I had with those guys, I felt very much at home. I spent a long time with them at training. A long time.

I remember the drills. They used to set out cones and pull balls at me from 25 metres or so. Webbie [Peter] used to stand there and oversee. The ground I could cover in those days was quite something. It became a thing for the guys to see how much they could stretch me and how hard they could hit it. My hands would be ringing by the end of it. Some of the catches I used to pull in! It amped up as we went along, and I clearly remember the elation and the lads cheering. I was like a goalkeeper - “Let's see if we can get one past him.” I would get to 12, 13, 14 catches and I was buggered. But they would urge me on, “Come on. Get to 20 … Come on, you can do 25.” I was in a team where I felt everyone was really pulling for me and that made me - a teenager - feel pretty good. My social skills were pretty limited. I was certainly no good with the girls at that stage. This was how I related to people, and here I was surrounded by a group of guys I thought were pretty cool. There was fun, ambition and a lot of adrenaline. It was a magical time in my life. It was also a safe place and where I felt most comfortable.

Were you an obsessive teen?

I just played sport. Every minute of every day, and when I wasn't playing cricket, I was playing rugby. I was in the First XV from the fifth form. But yes, cricket lends itself to that obsessive compulsive personality. I think a little bit of OCD doesn't hurt - you need to be highly repetitive. If you don't like hitting balls - and when I say hitting balls, you know, by the hundreds and thousands - you should probably go and do something else. If you're happy to stand in front of a bowling machine and hit 200 balls, six days a week for five years, you will turn into a good player. In that environment, having a highly repetitive personality has some benefits. It's a feature, not a bug, put it that way. To this day, I am still highly repetitive and I find comfort in it. It makes me feel good, and when I'm under pressure, I revert back to it.

I asked Adam about his role as mentor for the Māori Secondary Schools cricket team, his whakapapa and his own experience as a Māori cricketer.

Te Kuihi is my hapū from Dargaville and Te Roroa is my wider family group. My great-great-grandfather [Parore Te Āwha] was the paramount chief. Our family business is the Te Roroa Group, a Treaty entity whose lands run from where I am now in the Hokianga, south to Dargaville. I've ended up running the commercial entities for five or six years now - a dairy farm for a little while, beef, forestry, honey, asset management, conservation, co-governance of Waipoua Forest and Tāne Mahuta. It’s a decent-sized business.

As far as cricket goes, it [being Māori] wasn't really a thing, to be honest. It was a curiosity, a talking point, a statistic - that was it. Whereas the program that we run for these young boys now is very different. It's a different vibe to a ‘normal’ cricket team. I think it allows them to express themselves in an environment where they're comfortable. The Māori community is very much about inclusiveness, whānau and relationships. There's a real focus on how you feel rather than what you do. It's good fun, and it's healthy for them.

Their culture is an everyday part of their life, but it's not usually something that they take with them into their sports teams. I think it's probably more accepted in rugby, simply because of the sheer number of Māori players in the teams - it pervades the dressing room. If there are 12 Māori boys in a rugby team of 18 then that becomes the culture - it’s quite natural. But when there’s just two or three of you, you don’t overplay it. So the opportunity for these guys to get together and express themselves is pretty powerful. It’s also casual. There's a lot of chat, a lot of laughter and it just runs at a different speed. You go out for warm-ups and there are tunes playing. It’s cool.

I would have loved that opportunity, no doubt. There’s the obvious cultural significance but you’re also playing for whānau. They play as the curtain-raiser to an ODI now, so at that age, it would have been a great thrill. But as a sport and nation, we were so far away from that at the time. It just wasn’t on the radar.

How do the youth of today compare?

They leave us for dead, that’s for sure. The first net session I went to with these young kids - 17 or 18 - I looked at them and I said ‘Holy Hell!’ I mean, when we were 17 or 18, we could play a bit. But these guys … I went and spoke to one of the young spinners because I wanted to figure out if he had any idea of what he was trying to do - the line he was bowling etc. He was right across it. I was blown away by how much they understand the game. I think you see it permeate right through, from the way these young guys are able to play in T20. It never occurred to us that you could just walk out there and hit every second ball out of the ground for two hours. We never thought we could do that. Turns out, you can! A large part of the success of these young guys is that they have no barriers. They have no fear. It used to be, “You can do this and you can do that.” I remember watching the first one day international where they made 60 after the first ten overs and everyone reacted like it was the moon landing!

Back to your own game, it seems a major turning point was the appointment of Steve Rixon as coach of the Blackcaps.

For sure. We were in Australia in ‘97. I had just got the gloves back [from Lee Germon], so it was probably our first proper trip away. Stumper [Rixon] got me in the nets early on. I was missing stumpings - they were the bane of my life - and dropping catches when I was standing up, typically to Daniel [Vettori]. It was starting to distress me because I felt like I was letting him down. I was trying everything. I couldn't possibly have tried harder, but I just couldn't get it right. I might drop one a year standing back, but on the stumps I was putting one down every three or four games. Why? I was watching the other keepers - Healy’s not doing it, so and so’s not doing it. Why is it just me? Because, you know what, I'm better than those guys. Stumper got hold of me and he said, “This is what you're doing. And if you want to go forward, here's the technique. We've got to unlearn everything that you've learned. It doesn't work. You've got to trust me.” He showed me and it was the complete opposite of what I'd been taught from the age of 10.

I was on the spot. I could hardly say, “No, thanks, I'm good!” I liked Stump and I trusted him, but if I'm honest I was just going through the motions initially. I didn't really believe. But I was desperate so I thought, “You know, I'll give it a go.” We started working on it in training and it just clicked. Literally a week later, I had completely changed my technique, and I was in a test match, doing it! It felt easy and natural, and it just got better and better. Steve and I developed a real rapport. It gave me confidence and it gave him enthusiasm, and we became a real team. We became very energised at practice.

He gave me a leg up in my career, because looking back, I had come to the end of what I was capable of. I was banging against the ceiling and I had nowhere to go. The new technique released me again, and at the same time, I developed a great friendship with Stumper. We trusted each other implicitly and further, it released me as a person. I think it was very good for me in terms of my engagement with the rest of the team. They suddenly saw me engaged again - first to training, last to leave. The results were obvious on the field. My relationship with the guys that I stood on the stumps to particularly improved: Gavin Larsen, Chris Harris, Paul Wiseman and Daniel. I was getting results for them so they were thrilled. They became engaged because suddenly they were taking more wickets. Having a keeper as a coach was a blessing because it was such a rare event. That was one of the pivotal moments in my career.

Would you also describe your relationship with John Graham as pivotal?

He was the first manager who really empowered us. My relationship with him was complex, but he picked me out. When I misbehaved, I used to get invited up to his room at 4 o'clock for a whiskey and we just sat there and talked. He was the first guy who talked to me about how I felt, really asked how I felt. If I'd acted out - which I often did - there was a reason for it, right? Nobody bothered to ask. They just said, “Here's the rules, here's your penalty and don't do it again.” Which didn't really resonate with me … Whereas DJ used to observe my behaviour and say, “You and I better have a talk about that.” And then he would ask me, “What was all that about?” He engaged with us and backed us to such a point that we didn't want to let him down. He trusted us and as soon as he did that, we were all determined that we wouldn't betray that trust. In turn, we became very conscious of the way he thought we should do things and the examples that he set.

I remember sitting my university exams on tour in India. I had the misfortune of having DJ with me - he offered to supervise them. He was the Chancellor of the University [Auckland] at that stage. So that was a little intimidating. I thought he might just leave me on my own to get on with it and he said, “No, boy, I'll come and sit with you.” For three hours, watching me do them. He was an extraordinary man.

Are you still in touch with your old team mates?

I haven't seen a lot of the guys for a long time but then you bump into them and five minutes later it's like you've spent the last ten years together. Even guys who you are not naturally great mates with … you develop a relationship or bond with them over time. I think that is one of the special things about being in an elite sports team.

Before my first Black Clash [Blackcaps vs All Blacks charity cricket match], I hadn't seen Flem for a long time, or Macca [Craig McMillan] or Dan [Daniel Vettori]. I was just really looking forward to seeing them and they were so thrilled to see me. We had a great time. It was heartwarming and I think that being part of a team is something that you only start to appreciate and understand as you get older. It’s something I've noticed in life generally since my time in that team environment because it's been impossible to replicate. It was a gift that I didn't treasure at the time.

You just don't get that in business. One of the things you learn as a young sportsman - which is why I encourage my kids to play a sport of some kind - is that you learn to develop these very constructive, functional relationships with people who are not necessarily your friends. You learn how to get along in the sandpit for everybody's benefit and you don't see that anywhere else. People don't do that in business.

But I still try to build teams based largely on the best cultures of the cricket teams I played in. I manage a very large business [Hurlingham Partners Ltd. - SBA (Small Business Accounting) is one of their assets] where we employ somewhere between 800-1000 people. My approach to the senior management team is based very much on what I learned from John Graham and Steve Rixon. That is, we make sure that the managers have the capital they need to run their business and that they are empowered to make the decisions. They employ their own people, and they are responsible for them. If they need advice, they come and ask me, but otherwise I get out of the way: your business, your call. I learned about that sense of responsibility in the Blackcaps under those two men - “It's yours. You do it. We're not going to sit here and micromanage you. When you're out there in the middle, you make the call and we back you.”

Part Two will be with you early next week.