Rebecca Ewert

Blue Baths beginnings for Commonwealth, Olympic Games trailblazing diver    

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

At 15, Rebecca Ewert was selected to dive and swim for New Zealand at the British Commonwealth Games.

The year was 1970 and Edinburgh was the host city. She was back on the board at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games. By then the British part of the title had been dispensed with.  

She was in the New Zealand contingent at the FINA (International Swimming Federation) world champs in Cali, Colombia the following year. That’s where she qualified for the 1976 Montreal Olympics. It made her New Zealand’s first Olympic diver of either gender.

 And that’s but half of it. This impressive all-round athlete’s sporting resume includes playing rep level hockey, netball and squash while at Rotorua Intermediate and Girls’ High. She competed in athletic events at provincial level and took out a national trampolining title.

For relaxation Rebecca had a horse to ride and took music and dance lessons. Ballet, she says, was the perfect pursuit to give her those tools that competitive divers must have: balance, flexibility and strength.

“I didn’t sit ballet exams, I did it for the enjoyment.”

Like many young girls she badgered her parents for a pony.  

“Eventually they relented. The first one was a bit of a donkey.”

She wanted more action and got it when ‘the donkey’ was replaced by a former polo pony. 

“One day it took off on me, it was completely out of control galloping down Springfield Road.” This normally intrepid give-it-a-goer admits she was frightened – “a bit.”  

Rotorua provides opportunities   

Rebecca’s adamant growing up in Rotorua was pivotal to her ability to cram so much into her early life.

“It provided me with the opportunity to get involved in so many different sports and activities because of the easy access to facilities. In a bigger city I’d never have been able to do that. Here everything was just down the road. Five minutes to here, five minutes to there. The Rotorua environment’s incredible.” 

Taken at face value that statement about Rotorua’s attributes interprets as her love for the place she grew up in and has had strong connections to for many years. Its sub text is her reluctance to take credit for her personal success story. 

“I guess I showed a bit of aptitude” is as far as she allows herself to go. She’s not being coy.

 Shying away from personal promotion is an integral part of her psyche. She’s very conscious she’s not alone in her extended family success stories.

Deep family roots

Ewerts have made their mark in Rotorua and beyond for more than a century. Rebecca’s grandfather, Australia-born Les Ewert went into business here as a merchant and raised a large family.

He served three terms on the Borough Council in the 1930s and early 1940s. She understands at one point he was deputy mayor.

In his book The New Century in Rotorua local historian Don Stafford writes that few contributed more to the community than her late father Doug (Bandy) Ewert. Stafford records he excelled at cricket, hockey, rugby, swimming and diving. He was national diving champion in the late 1930s. 

Cousins from the Smith, Ab (Alan) Ewert and Spedding families have made their own marks in swimming and water skiing. More recently Pamela Ewert became a successful distance swimmer.

Swimming, diving, trampolining

As they had been for Bandy, the Blue Baths were where Rebecca and her elder sister Linda learnt to swim. He and their mother Una, also a keen sports woman, insisted on it.

Her first Blue Baths memory is swimming widths with a flutter board.  “Kicking and trying to breath. I was about five.”

By the time his trainees reached the bigger pool Blue Baths coach Doug Freeman rounded off lessons by having them jump and dive off the diving boards.

The Blue Baths had two, one a metre from the water, the other three metres.  A five metre platform remained but was no longer in use.  

“That’s pretty unbelievable when you think of the [relatively shallow] depth of the water. It would be totally unacceptable these days for health and safety reasons.”   

Health and Safety would likely have had a fit too at the baths’ water quality. When Rebecca started there they were unfiltered.

 “When they were filled the water was a beautiful blue. By day three it was dark green and on day four the pools had to be emptied.”

She attributes her healthy immune system to her early exposure to the Blue Baths water.

“When I was swimming and diving there I had every infection I could possibly have.”

They didn’t deter her.  By nine, she was representing Bay of Plenty in diving and swimming at the national age group champs. 

She specialised in freestyle and butterfly. 

“I was fit for short distances. I guess I was a ‘fast twitch’. I didn’t actually train a lot for swimming. There was quite a lot of cross fitness in those days.”

Cross fitness included trampolining.   

“It was used primarily as a tool to learn new dives. We tended to do that in the winter months when the pools were shut for six to eight weeks. 

“I got into the national champs when I was about 13 or 14 but didn’t continue, focusing instead on swimming and diving.”

Duck pond rescue
 

Freeman insisted his swimmers and divers became proficient lifesavers.

Out there is someone who owes their life to Rebecca’s rescue skills.

She was nine when she and her friend, Amanda Isdale, saw what they first thought was a doll face down in the Government Gardens duck pond.

 “It turned out to be a boy of about 18 months. I was very apprehensive about wading into the duck pond. I’d come from church and had my good clothes on. I was worried what my mother would think if I got them wet and dirty, but I did go in and pull him out.

“I told Amanda to run and get her dad.  He was a doctor and the one who resuscitated the boy.”

Regardless of who did what, it was a headline-making rescue.

“I remember sitting on my father’s knee watching a story about it on the news that night. At that age that was a bit special.”

Not everyone was impressed. “Doug [Freeman] wanted to know why I hadn’t done the resuscitation. He said I should have got onto it straight away.”

Double Selection 

The conversation turns to her double selection for the Edinburgh Games while a fifth former at Girls’ High.   

“The selectors were swimming selectors. They didn’t know a lot about diving but they did ask me to do a few more dives.”

That was at the nationals in Dunedin.

At the same event Rebecca came fourth in the 100 metres freestyle. 

“That qualified me to swim at the Games but when I got there the heats were on at the same time as the diving.

“Obviously I couldn’t be in two places at once. I was disappointed but it was not to be.”

For her life in the Games village was “a lot of fun.”

“There were a lot of other young people there too because swimmers are generally much younger [than other athletes]. We had chaperones.” 

Even then there were question marks over the issue of competitors’ genders.

“In those days they took a hair follicle to confirm we were female.”

Sportswoman of the year 

After the Games she went straight into another swimming competition.

“It was in Blackpool. I was a bit put out that I had to keep training when the other two New Zealand divers just tagged along. They were free agents. I found that a bit annoying.”     

Nor was she amused when she wasn’t able to socialise after being named Rotorua’s 1970 sportswoman of the year.   

“I went in my school uniform. There was a function after the presentation. I wasn’t allowed to stay because they had alcohol there. Then you had to be 21 to be where liquor was being consumed.

“I was a bit po-faced about missing out. That caused a bit of friction with my parents.”

Back from Edinburgh she picked up her schooling where she’d left off. “School C [Certificate] was coming up. I had to get that under my belt so I had to focus on my school work.”

Other training grounds 

Following Edinburgh, Rebecca concentrated solely on diving. Fellow 1970 games diver, Cyril Buscke, coached her at the Napier pool during school holidays. 

At the end of her first year at Otago University’s law faculty she made the first of several trips to the US for coaching at Dick Smith’s Swim Gym. 

She was there in the lead ups to the world champs in Colombia and the Montreal Olympics.

“I went whenever I could. We had reverse seasons.”

The 1976 Olympics were her last competitive event.

“I just lost my passion for it, also I was about to graduate with a law degree. I knew it was time to decide what I wanted to do in the future.”

Law studies 

She can’t pinpoint exactly why she chose to study law. 

“Apart from the fact I watched Perry Mason and The Main Chance on TV and read crime books, I don’t think it was a conscious thought. I just considered it would be a handy qualification, providing a framework for many other things.”
She does know why she chose Otago. 

“It was the only university at the time with access to an indoor diving pool.”

 A Masters at Wellington’s Victoria University followed her Otago degree.

Military rejection, acceptance

Her future still undecided, she was passing Ohakea air base when she made a spur-of-the-moment decision to inquire about becoming an RNZAF pilot. She’d gained a student pilot’s licence while still at school.

“Much to my concern I was told women couldn’t be pilots in the air force.”
 So the air force wouldn’t have her but what about the army? They had a legal division.

Rebecca headed to Waiouru military camp to find out.

“I thought my law degree could interest them. Initially they said ‘no’ because they hadn’t had any female lawyers in the military.”

These were the days before workforce gender equality was legally recognised. Trailblazing Rebecca persisted. 

“In the end they said yes.”

She entered Defence Headquarters in Wellington as a legal officer in 1978, in uniform and at the rank of lieutenant.

Three years on she was seconded to the Singapore-based New Zealand Force South East Asia. Among a raft of duties she was legal adviser to approximately 2000, from commanders to servicemen and their dependents. She prosecuted at Courts Martial and provided advice in multi-force exercises.

Singapore strikes balance

Singapore life was the ideal balance between work, sport and socialising.

“I was very busy but it was a great time.

“The military placed a lot of emphasis on sport, health and fitness. I played squash at the Singapore cricket club. There was lots of wind surfing, water skiing, swimming and running. 

“Socially there were Singapore slings at Raffles, all of that. It was a really good life.”

She met her husband-to-be when both were stationed at the same officers’ mess. He was a RNZAF helicopter pilot. They married her parents’ Tihi-o-Tonga home in 1983. 

“We went back to Singapore until we were posted back to Auckland. I was posted to the Navy. “He then got posted to the Sinai which was quite disruptive.”

Their sons, Sean and Daniel, were born while Rebecca was with the military.  

Civilian career path

Her final posting was to Land Force Command, Auckland. When she hung up her uniform in 1995 she held the rank of lieutenant colonel.

She denies it’s as grand as it sounds, dismissing it as “just a rank.” 

“I was limited in what I could do in the military. I had two young children which didn’t make significant posting options feasible.

“In those days there was no operational deployment for legal officers. You didn’t go into war zones like in the movies.”  

To enumerate Rebecca’s career history post-military career would double, even treble the length of this In Profile. Her CV is lengthy and impressive, numerous consultancies and directorships are included.

She was Unitec New Zealand’s Registrar for nine years. For another four she sat on the Bench dispensing justice as a community magistrate.

Since 2014 she’s been Auckland University’s General Counsel, dealing with all things legal relating to the country’s largest tertiary institution. 

In a classic case of working remotely, it’s a job she successfully conducted from Rotorua during the past three years.

As the first pandemic lockdown loomed, Rebecca returned home to keep her mother company. Una Ewert died last December. She was 95.

Snow sports selector

Cherry picking our way through her younger daughter’s CV we can record Rebecca has been a member of the Outward Bound Trust (her father was a founding member) and the War Pensions Appeal Board. She was appointed founding chair of its successor, the Veterans’ Entitlement Appeal Board.

On the sporting front she’s been a member, then chair of the board of Diving New Zealand and a board member of Aquatics New Zealand.

Both were predictable. Her present role as a selector for Snow Sports New Zealand isn’t.

She acknowledges she’s neither a skier nor a snow boarder. 

“I’m not standing on the sidelines judging athletes seeking to go [to the Winter Olympics]. My role is to ensure, with others on the panel, that athletes have met the selection criteria and standards set by the NZOC.” 

She draws on her legal knowledge and competitive diving days as the basis for her decision making.

She’s never met today’s crop of outstanding snow sporters but has enormous admiration for them. “They are quite fantastic. I can’t believe the things they do. They seem totally fearless.”

Blue Baths rescue mission

Reflecting on her own sporting spring board, Rebecca has unfinished Rotorua business. It’s to have the Blue Baths returned to their glory days.         

She is shocked by their present abandoned state. They’ve been closed since being deemed an earthquake risk in 2021.

“They are iconic. It would be wonderful to restore them as an adjunct to the museum. I would love to see them returned to being a recreational sporting facility.”

Memo council and councillors: Be warned. Rebecca’s a subscriber to the “Where there’s a will there’s a way” philosophy. 

Being such a high achieving action woman does she consider herself a role model?

“Not at all. I just believe that if you get the opportunity you should take it. Give it a really good go and see what you can do.”