 Feb 2001 Volume 82 Number 2 "serving the protectors" |
 |
Thunderbird Cop |
|
| By Brett Williams Adelaide Thunderbirds player, Peta Squire, was headed for a tough time when she decided to undergo police recruit training during last year’s netball season. Now, she tells just how rugged that assignment became. |
Peta Squire stood shattered and weeping after she and her Thunderbirds teammates lost last year’s National Netball League final by one point. She had seemed destined to revel in a third consecutive grand final victory, as her champion SA team had led for most of the game. But opponent Melbourne Phoenix triumphed in the dying moments of last August’s hard-fought contest.
Says Squire of the crushing defeat: “It was terrible. Everyone was just distraught. There were tears, because we had a good grip on the game in the third quarter. We pretty much lost the game ourselves. They (Phoenix) didn’t win it as such – we lost it from our own bad passes.
“(Now) I choose to forget it, but I guess it makes you stronger for next season.”
As a woman inclined to understate her worth, Squire, 25, plays down an added pressure she faced during the entire season. Off the netball court, she had been a police officer-in-training. Under a gruelling regime, she had studied law and policing by day at Fort Largs, and spent countless evening and weekend hours training on the court. Her social life had all but vanished.
In a typical week, she fronted for three netball practice sessions, as well as separate training with weights and extra running. Some weeks brought many more demands, such as coaching clinics, interstate travel for away games and media work. All this, of course, was in addition to her full-time police training commitments.
Squire remembers her commitment to both her career and top-level sport as “pretty tough”. She concedes she found little time to study police work, and had to spend some weekends at Fort Largs catching up with what she had missed.
“It worked pretty well,” she says. “I managed to pick it up. It was a pretty ?full-on’ time, but I’d rather be busy. You just have to be organized; manage your time efficiently.”
But as Squire soldiered on in the netball arena, Thunderbirds coach, Marg Angove, saw worrying signs in her world-class player.
“At times,” says Angove, “she was really tired. But she’s fairly hard on herself, and never wanted to miss training – nor did she ever not want to do the right thing with her job.”
For the equally determined coach, it was “hard to slow Peta Squire down”. Angove remembers that she (Squire) would always decline offers of time off training and, instead, continue to “push herself”.
And, like other elite athletes, Squire could not escape pressure – both self-imposed and from others – to win. She had been a Thunderbird since the team formed in 1997; and it had, since then, played in every grand final.
So the pressure was “intense” but, to Squire, “not a bad thing”. She and her teammates, she insists, thrived on pressure and shared great confidence in one another.
T oday, some wonder why Squire – a qualified primary school phys ed teacher and elite athlete – joined the police force. The former Reynella East High School girl thought the prospect of teaching held little excitement. She saw career options within SAPOL as diverse and policing as likely to offer some exciting times.
She had always harboured interest in police work, and so endured the drawn-out joining process early last year. With no alternative job options in her plan, Squire constantly rang SAPOL’s recruitment arm in the hope of good news.
But, when she earlier announced her intention to join the thin blue line, how did her family – and others – react?
Her parents – themselves former sportspeople – were shocked, and left in some disbelief. Says Squire: “I popped up with: ?I’m going to try to join the police force’.
“My dad was a bit apprehensive. I guess he’d heard stories, seen bits in the media and thought it was dangerous. (Now) he rings me every day to see what’s happened.”
Coach Angove had some concerns as well. She saw Squire as “an outstanding athlete” and “one of the most important cogs in our system”. Naturally, she wondered about her wing defender’s future with the Thunderbirds.
Says Angove: “My first reaction as coach was: ?My goodness! I hope you can get time off to play’.
“In our game, the wing defender doesn’t get a lot of stats, but she is so important in restricting her opponent. The pressure she puts on her opponent enables Kathryn Harby and Sarah Sutter to get the interceptions.
“Sometimes I think she doesn’t realize how much value she is to the team. I remember her once saying to me: ?I need to take some more interceptions’. I said: ?You’ve taken about 90 for the year, and that’s probably 60 more than most other wing defenders. I think you’re doing all right’.
“I was a little surprised (she was going to join the police), but knowing Pete, she likes a challenge – and that’s what it is to her.”
Squire’s application was soon accepted. She began her six-month training course at Fort Largs in April last year. Her parents gave her strong support, while Angove stood ready to work out of hours with Squire whenever the need arose. And, with whatever extra time she could muster, Squire was equally willing to take on out-of-hours training.
She graduated from Fort Largs last October and has, since then, worked mainly in Adelaide patrols. In mid-January, she took up a new post as a cell guard in the City Watch House.
In her few months on patrol – which Squire found “great” – she responded to virtually every type of front-line job. Sometimes, however, her then new role daunted her. On her way to one job, her partner warned that he might, at the scene, have to draw his revolver.
“I was fine with that,” she says, “but because I was so new, I thought: ?What do I do? Do I do the same?’ I guess it’s all a learning experience.”
But she has already learned of common ground between police work and elite-level sport. “You have to be confident in this job,” she says, “and you’ve got to be confident playing netball.
“And, a lot of the training at the academy is about teamwork, so I guess being part of a (netball) team for so many years has helped.”
A netball player since the age of eight, Squire will one day retire from the game with many treasured memories. One will be her selection in the Australian team that won the 1999 World Netball Championship against New Zealand in Christchurch.
For now, however, retirement forms no part of her short-term plans. She hopes to keep playing with the Thunderbirds for a further four or five years. But she also hopes to make a career of policing, and can see the immense challenge of committing herself to both pursuits.
“Four or five years is a long time to be working around shifts and organizing myself,” she says. “And getting time off for the national team could be a problem – I’ve used up all my leave for tours coming up. But as long as I am organized – and know what I’m doing – I’ll be fine.”
|
||||||||||
|
The Police Journal Online is an
official publication of the Police Association of South Australia and is
published monthly. Editors of kindred publications can seek permission from the Editor to re-publish any Police Journal Online article. Copyright 2001 The Police Association of South Australia sustance |