Sharron Ede - ‘Wee Shaz’ – Netball’s tireless volunteer

She might be small in stature, but her word is final and local netballers young and old know that while you don’t mess with Shaz’s rulings on court, there’s warmth and encouragement behind every call.

Sharron Ede has been at the forefront of Wakatipu netball for more than 20 years, giving countless volunteer hours, up to 10 a week, as coach to local age-group rep and Wakatipu High School teams. Sharron has regularly travelled out of town as manager and coach all over New Zealand and the South Island, giving her time for tournaments. Umpiring has also been her passion and, recently turning 60, she’s now focused on training new umpires, starting them at 11 or 12.

As a former Southland Netball Executive Committee member through the Coca Cola Cup heydays of national champions Southern Sting, Sharron’s volunteered at the highest level and at times been quasi–Camp Mother when the celebrations have sometimes gone awry.

“A few would push past the limit celebrating on that final night, but you just get the big guns in,” says ‘Wee Shaz’, as she’s affectionately known.

Rules are rules and when a couple of Senior B players turned up at the airport in their slippers in the early days, not uniform attire, a much taller star Sting shoot, Donna Loffhagen (Wilkins), not to be messed with, did the honours. “Donna went over and tore strips off them and that was better than it coming from me,” Sharron chuckles.

Sharron was a late bloomer in netball, not really interested while at Kingswell High, where she excelled academically and loved reading, skipping a year to start high school at 12. She was the perfect candidate to babysit a future Cabinet Minister, Ayesha Verrall, whose parents taught at Kingswell.

Having three little brothers, Sharron quickly learned responsibility, once rescuing her brother who she spotted face down and lifeless floating in Awarua Bay.

Family holidays were spent at Riverton and Sharron left school after achieving University Entrance. She worked at KFC then as a Social Welfare Department family benefits officer.

At 19 she met husband of 40 years Nigel on a night out at The White House, where legendary band Vision was playing. They were engaged three weeks later and married when Sharron was 20, the first of their two children arriving 10 months later.

Sharron then turned farmer, initially running their 20-acre (8ha) block, then 70 acres (28.3ha) at Makarewa.

As a young mum she discovered indoor netball, soon joining the Makarewa Club, umpiring and coaching to help out, then president for several years.

Sharron was encouraged onto the Southland Netball Executive Committee in the 1990s with the movers and shakers who instigated professional netball in what became a nationally prestigious netball league. They wooed stars like Bernice Mene and Donna Loffhagen and The Sting became southern heroes, winning seven out of 10 national league titles.

Games started in the old Centennial Hall in Invercargill – Nigel building the netball poles. After a lot of liaising with Stadium Southland founders the new, covered championship stadium further cemented Southland’s netball prowess.

Sharron managed various teams, including the Southland Senior Bs, another tall guardian, Silver Fern Captain Irene van Dyk, sorting the Southland girls out for giving ‘Wee Shaz’ cheek about her height. “I pretty much came up to Irene’s hip,” Sharron laughs. “I felt like a midget beside her.”

In 2001 Nigel and Sharron bought a Queenstown engineering business, forming Ede Engineering.

Di O’Leary invited Sharron to coach the Year 10 As at Wakatipu High, then the Senior Bs, and she helped with Di’s Wakatipu Men’s Netball team, also serving as Wakatipu president for several years.

Umpiring is now her passion, completing further training in recent years and working with budding young umpires. “That’s given me more satisfaction than anything,” she says.

Sharron’s all about encouraging the kids. “Parents need to remember their children are playing sport for enjoyment, not to be Silver Ferns,” she says. “Some of the parents of younger kids are the worst. It’s disappointing when adults can’t differentiate between what’s high level and what’s not.” Umpires cop a bit of abuse, but Sharron doesn’t stand for that. “I call them out,” she says.

Last month (August) she was honoured with a life membership from the Wakatipu Netball Centre. She’s also previously won a netball volunteers’ cup.

Nigel races rally cars around the South Island so Sharron now volunteers at those events too, receiving volunteer awards from the Queenstown Car Club as well. After all it was that black and white checkered dress that she was wearing the night they met, that he told her ‘looks like a finishing line flag’, that first caught his eye.

Now Closeburn Station office manager, Sharron’s also on hand organising fundraising events and helping with providing services as a member of Altrusa Queenstown. “Get involved in the community. You get so much back,” she says.