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Q&A with Tauranga City Basketball's Women's Development Officer, Jeanna Cooney.
We’re talking women and girls in basketball. We sat down for a korero with Jeanna Cooney, Women’s Development Officer, at Tauranga City Basketball. Jeanna is also the Head Coach and Mentor Coach for the Tauranga Girls College Senior Premier Team.
Learn how she helps to empower women and girls both on and off the court.
How do your roles help women and girls to be more active?
I’m born and bred here in Tauranga Moana, so people already know who I am, so that is the foundation of my role. I’ve been in this coaching space in Tauranga, predominately in the female space, for about seven years. So, I’ve got a pretty good understanding of what is needed in the community and the kura.
For me it is about providing resources for our community, for our whānau, and for our parents. Teaching skill sets to coach teams - what do you do, how do you train teams, how do you get teams together. Also, providing rangatahi with the resources they need to be active in whatever code they want to play.
It’s about upskilling people with leadership skills as well. When I’m doing my sessions, it’s not always about basketball. It’s about giving them key life skills like communicating, decision making, overcoming certain situations and dealing with conflict. Skills that are going to help them not only in their game but in their outside life as well.
Is there anything extra required in the women and girls’ space?
Social media is impacting everyone as young as five and six years old. The biggest thing is trying to get girls not to believe everything they see on TikTok or social media. That’s tricky because it is around them all the time. Social media really gets into their confidence about who they are and what they are about. Their self-esteem gets affected and when they are out on the court, they are playing but you can see they are not really present because they are worried about what is this person going to think about me.
I think it is important to encourage girls to be confident in who they are. Make sure they are surrounding themselves with the right people. It’s about educating young ones, our rangatahi, our women, and our mums. I like to bring awareness around that space. Social media has such a big influence on our tamariki so it’s about trying to encourage them to utilise it in a more positive way, follow more positive influencers.
How is basketball a safe space for rangatahi and girls to come together?
It is a space where you are going to make those friends, you are going to create those great bonds and relationships. You probably have the same worries and the same concerns and go through the same things.
I think it is important that you have someone that can actually help guide them through that as well. So, giving them the right information or knowledge and not something that they’ve got off the internet or TikTok. Ensuring they have someone there who can guide their journey. That is a huge part of what I do.
I’m always trying to stay one step ahead regarding what is out there in society and what our rangatahi are dealing with. What are the tools that they need. For me it is important to get that information so I can pass that down through basketball. I can unintentionally drop those messages in the sessions.
What is important when working with parents, coaches and whānau?
It’s really about sharing my values and the key one is just manaakitanga, just looking after each other, empowering each other, upholding the mana of each other. Those are always things I take into the settings I go into and conversations with the people I am around. And whanuangatanga is huge for us. That is a key value that we try drive everywhere.
What challenges do women and girls face when participating in basketball?
It depends on the age group. For Intermediate and Secondary School, it’s the pressures of social media.
For my seven-year-old, she is the only girl playing basketball in a boys’ team. For her it is getting time with the ball, building that confidence, to know it’s just a game, it doesn’t matter who you are playing. You can do whatever you want, you just have to put your mind to it.
It’s a parent’s decision to let girls play and build that resilience, self-esteem and confidence at a young age. My girl was tripped over at Rippa rugby and needed a cuddle. I had to help her make her way through that. As opposed to, ‘Ok we’ve got to go!’. If I had done that, put her in the car and said ‘let’s go’, then she might not have gone back to play. Instead, I just let her express how she was feeling. What she was going through. Where it was sore. We had that conversation about, ‘are you better now? Are you going to get back out there?’ She was like ‘yeah, yeah’ and went back on the field.
What have been the challenges and benefits of developing a women’s league?
For us, there is the challenge of having that consistent women’s basketball league going for the older group and the women. In Tauranga, we tend to have a big drop off after Year 13 and university because many people leave the Bay. There’s a massive gap which makes having that women’s league available challenging.
Currently, Helen Richardson (Competitions and Events Manager) has done a great job in trying to attach a women’s team to a men’s team and develop the women’s team there. Through our social league, we have 6-8 consistent men’s teams, who are always putting their teams in. So, Helen approached the men’s teams to see if they would support bringing a women’s team alongside them and having the same name in the women’s league.
The development of the women’s league has an effect going back down. Having women consistently playing, and their kids seeing them play or others seeing them play, it helps provide inspiration to others to keep going.
We’re pretty lucky to have the Whai based here in Tauranga for our kids to aspire to. My child was involved in that programme last year and just the benefit of seeing that level of play and the influence of training with them and being around them. It’s next level. She is also involved in the programme this year and it has given her more drive and passion to aspire to get to the next level. Whai has been a ‘see it and believe it’ for her.
Why do you love what you do?
I think it comes back to being born and bred here in Tauranga Moana. I have a real big connection to the whenua here. I’ve also been in this pathway, I’ve played basketball with boys. I was that child where I had to be better.
So it was really building those leadership skills at that younger age. I have a story of being in Pirirakau Kōhanga Reo with our Kuia, Nana Maisey Bidios That’s where the leaderships starts. There we korero, we say our pepeha, we waiata, that is where a lot of the passion comes from, it’s that leadership being built at a young age, that Kōhanga Reo age. And just having some really awesome wahine role models as I’ve grown up through kapa haka, through kura, there’s always been one or two strong role models that has instilled different leadership skills in to my kete.
So, for me it is important to give and share all those taonga in my kete with the community. As tangata whenua. Sharing everything I have gathered along my journey and giving it back to the whānau.
What is the importance of building relationships in the basketball community?
What I do and how I operate is predominately based around my values as a person and everything I’ve gathered along my journey. Whanaugatanga, manaakitanga and kotahitanga – being as one, we are all in the same waka, we all want to row in the same direction. How can I get everyone to row in sync so we aren’t going around in circles?
Values that were instilled at a very young age. Growing up in Tauranga. All the experiences I’ve had. I was in the rep programme here growing up so I know what you can get out of it. I’ve lived it and experienced all the benefits.
Not just here, when you go away on tournaments you meet some awesome people, coaches, players, awesome whānau. I’ve had the opportunity to travel over to Australia to play. You also meet some not so cool people. I get to pick and choose what I want to put into my kete, the things that I see of value.
I think coming back to the Bay of Plenty I’ve just fully immersed myself in the sport space. I’ve been to a lot of the workshops that Sport Bay of Plenty have put on, I’ve done Development Coach Advance. Just searching for more knowledge for the wahine space because I knew I was going to be doing that. It’s important for me to be 10 steps ahead of everyone that I have to coach, or be in that space with, so that I can give back to the people that need it.
How can women and girls get involved with Tauranga City Basketball?
- Girls Navigator Sessions – skills-based sessions for under 11’s and 13’s
- Girl’s Rep teams
- Women’s League – Monday night
- Women’s Scrimmage – Sunday night
- Girls Got Game sessions in school (coming soon)
- Girls – Have a go day events (coming soon)
- Leadership programme in schools – currently seeking interest from schools who have Rangatahi seeking a pathway/opportunity to grow leadership skills.
Check out Tauranga City Basketball Association for current events and information
Final word from Melanie Giles, our Women & Girls Lead.
After travelling the region and meeting so many sport and active recreation providers who are catering for our young kōhine and wāhine throughout the Bay, there is a real sense of engagement and opportunities to provide alternative formats and opportunities to address the barriers that our young women face when accessing sport and active recreation.
With a locally-led approach and an ability to listen to our young women, we can then develop and wrap programmes around them to support the activities, workshops they would like to attend, and / or alternatively run these in their own communities with support for the community. Get in touch with Mel to discuss your ideas.
