MARK ETHERIDGE: SA’s netball luminary from little Jan Kempdorp

Netball is one of the most popular sports among SA women, and renowned coach Burta de Kock comes from a tiny town with some unusual history.

She grew up in Jan Kempdorp, north of Kimberley. One of this dorpie’s claims to fame is that it has one of the longest poplar tree lanes in the world, planted in 1937.

Cape Town hosts the 2023 iteration of the Netball World Cup championships, held every four years since 1963 and SA is the first country in Africa given hosting rights.

Dates are  July 28 to  August 6 ( Women’s Month in SA) and it’s fitting that local broadcasters SuperSport will use an all-woman broadcasting crew.

Burta was recently privileged to earn a second berth on the World Netball Coaching Advisory Panel, having first served in 2019. She says: “We had to apply and then served for four years ... now I’ve just been reappointed. It’s such a privilege to share and exchange coaching knowledge with international counterparts and make plans for the future.”

Though she never represented SA at the most senior level when it comes to the nuts and bolts of netball, De Kock has seen it all and coached and refereed at all levels.

“I played at provincial level [Griqualand West] and also played for the Country Districts side — I was first a goal-attack and then a goal shooter.

“But though I played netball provincially I wasn’t good or great and would most certainly not give myself a 10/10 for playing ability.”

Coaching is her forté and she found her love for this at Free State University “the best university in the whole world” while teaching home economics at Welkom Gymnasium, also in the Free State.

“Those were the best years of my life, though I was teaching, I was also totally immersed in netball all day. I also played for the Rovers club in town and we won everything under the sun.”

It’s then that she started taking on referee and coaching duties and now she’s fully qualified to say: “I wasn’t a great player myself, but give me a player to coach and I will make them great.”

Proof of this is that she coached SA at the 2007 World Cup and was assistant coach to the Proteas at the next World Cup four years later.

The 2006-07 period was the highlight of her coaching career. “I just got so much more involved with coaching before, during and after the World Cup. In those years we didn’t have contracts or anything, it was only in 2011 that Netball SA appointed us as part of the staff.

“The highlight wasn’t the winning or losing but just the amazing friendships and amazing people you get to meet and how people approach coaching differently.”

Her low point was SA’s perennial problem, over the years, the “fifth-place” syndrome, always just outside the big four of world netball.

“Remember in the days when I was coaching we had so little time to prepare the players for internationals and so forth, other countries had camps.

“And I must stress that this wasn’t Netball SA’s fault. They’ve been brilliant but we needed more financing [we still need it!]  to put players in month-long camps and so forth.”

The good news is that though she’s already a positive person, she’s even more excited as this year’s World Cup looms.

“I’m incredibly excited. I’m so excited now that the international doors are open and we have players playing in leagues around the world, but the truth is that we are sitting on an absolute gold mine of talent in our own country.

“I see it every day!” She runs the high performance netball squad at Free State University and sees the evidence for herself, every day.

“I sit here with 32 brilliant players. I almost feel like a spoilt brat with the talent I have at my disposal ... their commitment to work hours and hours a day to improve themselves is phenomenal. I can’t complain about a thing. What started off as a hobby has become a dream job.”

On the down side she says that with netball being a mainly female sport, the actual netball career is short. “They’re girls; they get boyfriends, which is very nice, and then have kids which is also nice, but then they get work in other provinces and so on and netball falls away, so it’s a constant cycle.”

But she’s like a kid in a candy store when it comes to the Rainbow Nation hosting the netball World Cup this year.

“It’s going to be amazing, so many South Africans will be able to go and watch games and they’ll be able to see our best and the world’s best players right on their doorsteps — it’s going to be so beneficial to netball in SA, both financially and in showcasing the sport to more people.

“We have amazing coaching systems in this country and amazing coaches, the systems work well to a point but most coaches are also employed in other jobs and not full-time coaches, it would be ideal if they could do it full time, but even then, we’re in a good position, the system just needs more financing to be able to do that.”

Not content with just doing her best locally, she also has her eyes on Africa. “I want to climb into the continent and go and see their coaching structures and styles.”

All well and good but here’s hoping that the pride of Jan Kempdorp always makes sure that our own SA netball “poplars” remain our priority.