By Virginia Winder
Sheryl George's sporting life is the stuff of movies.
The Taranaki-born athlete has stood atop a score of victory podiums in three different sports.
And she's been so physically low that crawling to the letterbox took all her strength.
At just 38, Sheryl is on a different track now, one leading to new triumphs.
First of all let's get some things clear about who this Sheryl is.
Mention her name to Taranaki folk and most stare blankly.
Then there's a flicker of recognition. "Oh, I know, she's that councillor from Waitara," they say referring to New Plymouth District Council member Sherril George.
No!
This Sheryl is a dozen years younger, is from New Plymouth, but is now based in Wellington. And she's arguably one of Taranaki's most talented athletes – ever.
When her sporting feats are revealed, Taranaki people are astounded she isn't a national hero; that she's not in New Zealand's Sporting Hall of Fame.
She still could be – but you'll hear about that later.
Scorching over sand and sea
Sheryl has won a score of national titles in surf lifesaving. She was in the New Zealand team from 1982 to 1991 and has claimed four international gold medals.
Not only was Sheryl one of the fastest women beach sprinters ever to scorch the nation's sands, she was also a title-winning paddler on the Malibu board and surf ski. Add golds in the beach relay, rescue and resuscitation team events, beach flags and the tube rescue and you may get a glimmer of her all-round talents.
Now she has turned to coaching netball. Last year, she coached Wellington East to victory over PIC, which had won the capital's premiere club title for the previous 18 years. "My first year, we got within 10 points of them and this last year we beat them by 20."
Star netball coach
As a result, Sheryl was named Wellington netball coach of the year and has been chosen as coach of the capital's representative team.
Following on from last year's success, the Wellington East team has again clinched the premiere club competition for 2003, beating PIC 48-39. "We held on to it this year without (Silver Ferns) Irene van Dyk and Leana du Plooy. We were unbeaten all year," Sheryl says
Her coaching philosophy is simple – be prepared.
"I give them all the knowledge and all the preparation they need to go out on court. I will know the opposition inside out and back to front," says the former New Plymouth Girls' High School student.
"The more homework I do only benefits the players because it gives them more information and tactics and skills and makes them better prepared players. How prepared you are as a coach depends on how successful your team's going to be," she says.
For Sheryl, knowledge is power.
All there is to know
That's something she realised early in her sporting career, says former New Zealand surf lifesaving selector and coach Trevor Corkin. "She was always asking questions. She wanted to do well, so she would make sure that she knew everything she possibly could about what she wanted to do. She would go until she mastered it."
While some lifeguards needed to be goaded into training, Sheryl was always dedicated to improving her fitness. "She was self-motivated," he says.
"She was obviously a natural sprinter – but she was good at everything."
Paddle Power: In surf lifesaving, Sheryl George was a champion in the sea and on the sand.
Image: Provided by the Daily News
Trevor, now East End club coach, says Sheryl was competing in surf lifesaving before ironwoman events became part of the programme. "She would've been awesome," he says.
Looking back, he marvels at her resolve to be the best. "She was so determined to win these things."
And on her multi-sport abilities: "No, you don't get much better than that."
That winning feeling
Neither does the feeling of success, says Sheryl, who remembers every triumphant moment.
Standing on the victory dais in surf lifesaving, winning as part of a team, or as coach, there is nothing like it. "You feel on top of the world. It's the most satisfying, gratifying, happy feeling because everything you have done has paid off.
"There are so many emotions. You just want to scream, because it's the best thing that's ever happened. You want to cry, you just want to shout at the top of your lungs. You just want to go and hug everybody. Individually, it's just the best feeling."
Sheryl admits she used to be addicted to that feeling, but not anymore.
In 1995, her sporting dreams began to crumble.
Slam dumped
It began when she was dropped from the Silver Ferns. "I was devastated. I was playing the best netball of my career – everybody said that and I felt that."
She continued to play netball for Waikato and went to the winter tournament in Palmerston North. There, she met a soccer player called Craig Burns, who she married in 2000 to become Sheryl George-Burns. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Back to '95. After being dropped from the New Zealand netball team, Sheryl began playing basketball again and made herself available for the top team and was once more chosen for the Tall Ferns. "I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it."
She was even named Taranaki Sportsperson of the Year.
Then came the body blow.
The big crash
On the way home from Hamilton on Christmas Eve 1995, Sheryl's car skidded on melted tar-seal, slick with drizzle, near Urenui on State Highway 3.
"I turned this corner and the car slid across the road, hit a bank and flipped three times. I was upside in the car; I was glad to be alive. But I couldn't get out. I unlocked my belt and screamed for help. No one was there."
Then shock and panic turned her survival into a nightmare. With the driver's door lodged against the bank, Sheryl began imagining the car exploding. "All I had to do was switch off the key, but I didn't think of that."
Instead, she made a superhuman effort to get out. "I just kicked and kicked the door into the bank to get out. I remember running up the road."
A family, which had been driving in the same direction, noticed Sheryl's had disappeared and turned back to see if anything had happened to her.
They found her bloody, distraught and hunting for her missing cat. She fended off ambulance officers who came to take her to hospital and was eventually taken to her parents' home by the police.
Pain in the neck
"About an hour later I felt like I'd been run over by a bus. My face was swollen, I had two black eyes and I was in agony."
Sheryl's mum, Rae, took her to the hospital, where she was checked and x-rayed. After studying the x-rays, the duty doctor sent her home with a neck collar to wear.
In the following weeks, Sheryl's symptoms continued. "I started getting wicked headaches, blurred vision, but I started training again because we had the Bendon (netball) league and in one the first pre-season games, I didn't feel well and felt like I was just going to pass out."
She went to her doctor in Hamilton and more x-rays were ordered. "They discovered I had a fractured neck; a hairline fracture. They didn't put me in hospital. They gave me medication and I was off work for three months. I had to have bed rest."
Sheryl gave up all sport and didn't play again until she moved to Wellington the following July to become the coaching manager for Surf Lifesaving New Zealand.
For several months, life was back on track. Sheryl was together with her capital soccer player, she loved her job, her body had healed and she was on the ball again.
Overwhelming tiredness
Then, late in the summer of 1997, she was away working at the surf lifesaving nationals in Mt Maunganui when she began feeling extremely tired. Back in Wellington, she even fell asleep while talking to her boss.
"The next day I just couldn't get out of bed."
But she did and went to work. "I was crying, and thinking 'something is wrong with me and I'm really tired, I need to go home'."
Medical tests showed she had recently had glandular fever. "I rested for a few days, then I started training again, didn't I, and I got worse. I got to the point where I couldn't get out of bed in the morning.
"I couldn't even make it to the letterbox. I was aching in every joint and muscle in my body and I was depressed and I felt like I was going to die."
Chronic diagnosis
Finally, Sheryl went to see a specialist at Wellington Hospital, who diagnosed her with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome.
"He sent me home, told me to give up my job, just sleep and do no exercise. That's the hardest thing I've done in my whole life," she says.
"My stress release was always to exercise and I couldn't do it and so I felt like my legs were chopped off."
This sick, tired, depressed woman was not the person Craig Burns had fallen in love with. Despite the struggles, the propping up, the down times, he and Sheryl have stayed together. And they are stronger than ever, with plans for a beach home at Waikanae and a relaxed family lifestyle.
"Once I accepted that I was sick, we worked out a plan on how to manage it; how I could get the best out of my day and still have energy at the end of the day," Sheryl says."
New way of living
Slowly, gently, Sheryl began to recover and on the way learnt a new way of living. "It was a huge growth period for me. I realised that sport and training and pushing myself was not the be all and end all anymore. I became a more balanced person.
"I started gardening, going to the beach and just sitting there, watching the waves."
It took two years for Sheryl to get over the worst of the debilitating auto-immune disease.
Now she is cautious. "It's always in your system – it will never go away. I can't go and train like I did before. I'm more a recreational fitness person now."
But she did go back to the pro-league in netball. "I wanted to prove I had beaten it and I had – until dad (Neville George) had a heart-attack at the end of it. You can't handle stress when you've got ME. Even now I can't have late nights all the time. I just can't cope with it."
Playing the glad game
Sheryl's view of life has changed – for the better. "I'm glad that it happened because now I know what an ordinary person lives like. It happened because my body needed to stop before something drastic happened.
"It's made me see everything in a different light. When something bad happens in your life you have more empathy for others. I see people as more precious than I did before," says the mother of wee girl Rylee, who was born in January 2002.
Sheryl's newfound insight also helps with her sideline netball role. "When I'm coaching, I'm trying to get the best out of everyone. I'm still hard – don't get me wrong – I'm honest and upfront. But I'm more empathetic to people and what's going on in their lives and how it affects them on the court."
And we're back to sport.
"When I'm in bed at night I can think over a play and I will remember it in the morning. It doesn't just come from netball, it comes from all the sports I have been involved in. I can take basketball moves and turn them into netball moves.
"I like to think my coaching style is quite creative and varied and gives you and your players more options."
And she's off, eyes on another title, the letterbox just an easy stroll away.
Writer's predictions: Sheryl George-Burns will one day coach the Silver Ferns and be honoured in the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame.
Waves of Peace: Sheryl George learnt to sit and watch the sea. Image: Provided by The Daily News