Remarkable Sporting Family
ONE THINKS LIFE’S A BEACH AND THE OTHER IS HELPING SOCCER IN THIS COUNTRY RISE FROM THE ASHES. TAURANGA BROTHERS JASON AND TONY LOCHHEAD ARE EACH CARVING A DECENT SLICE OF INTERNATIONAL SPORTING SUCCESS.
Story: Mark Symonds Photography: Zoe Gower
THE PROBLEM WITH GROWING CITRUS IN TAURANGA is everyone can do it. Export-grade oranges aren’t much of a novelty when every second house on the street has a couple of trees laden with juicy gold.
And so it was, 20 or so years ago, Jim and Pixie Lochhead ripped out some of the closer fruit trees around their Te Puna home and orchard and started investing in a crop of international sporting stars instead. The results have been impressive. Not only does their lush two-acre section, dappled in warm sunlight, boast a tennis court, beach volleyball court and decent croquet rink, all three of their children have represented New Zealand.
“We just loved sport growing up,” All White soccer defender Tony Lochhead, who plays for the Wellington Phoenix, confirms. “As kids, we always had balls in the house and we played all sorts of things. If we had chosen something else, I reckon we could have gone on to another professional sport if we’d really wanted to.”
Among the 26-year-old’s earliest memories are chasing neighbouring cats with a cut-down set of golf clubs and building a set of goal-posts with his dad on the back lawn, venturing out at halftime during All Black tests to try out his John Kirwan impressions. Older sister Tracey, now 28, played indoor volleyball for New Zealand through the age-groups and played in the national senior side from 1999 to 2001, also representing New Zealand at the World Universities’ Games.
Jason - at 24, the baby of the clan - is making huge inroads on the world professional beach volleyball tour with partner Kirk Pitman. The Pitman/Lochhead partnership is hoping to become just the second Kiwi beach pairing to play at the Olympics.
“I’m the youngest and everyone else was playing volleyball, so I just followed suit,” Jason explains. “I love beach volleyball because it’s such a fast-action game and to be able to travel the world playing the sport you love and make a living off it… there isn’t much more you can ask for. The endless summer thing is also pretty cool - I get to dive around on all the best beaches in the world in the warm sun year-long, every year!”
Jason was also an indoor star, playing for the New Zealand junior team as a setter, libero and hitter, before switching to beach and the backcourt and where he’s recognised as the country’s best defensive player.
Though not blessed with a volleyballer’s biggest weapon - at 1.78m, he’s relatively short - his lightning reflexes, vertical leap and ability to control the shot easily make up for it” Jason and Kirk first teamed up in 2004. They’ve been stellar performers every summer on the New Zealand Pro Beach Tour, winning the New Zealand Open for the last two seasons, and they now have the challenge of finishing in the top 25 on the world tour by July to qualify for the Beijing Games. They’ve also got their focus firmly on London in 2012, when both will be approaching their peak in the sport.
Sporting Genes
All sports, meanwhile, run thick in the Lochhead bloodlines. Jim was a handy Tauranga rugby player who also dabbled in volleyball when the sport reached the city, while his sister is Bay of Plenty netballer supreme Sheryl Dawson, married to Chiefs rugby chief executive Gary.
Pixie, was a keen basketballer, netballer and tennis player, as their home court suggests. It was little wonder those sporting genes were absorbed by their eager progeny.
These days Jason is a scratch golfer, good enough to try his hand at top local amateur tournaments when his beach career allows. Tony is also a nine-handicapper, joking he doesn’t get as much time to practise as his younger brother, while he also represented New Zealand as a teenager in beach volleyball at the 2001 Youth Olympics. Both boys started playing tennis, and then dabbled heavily in rugby as they followed their dad’s lead.
“It was funny the way I went down the soccer path and he went down the volleyball path,” Tony muses.
“I started off playing rugby and the only reason I stopped was because they had a rule change and changed it from tackle to touch at the young level. We thought it was pretty stupid, and Dad pointed out a few great All Blacks had also been handy soccer players, so I decided to go and play a year of soccer. The intention was to come back and play rugby. For a while there I was playing both - soccer in the mornings and rugby in the afternoons -
but you can only do that for so long, and it became harder when I started making soccer rep teams.”
His first international experience came with the national under-17 team, when New Zealand hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1999. The Kevin Fallon-coached side snatched a win off Poland in group play, and the exposure he got enabled Tony to pick up a scholarship with the University of Santa Barbara, from there moving on to Major League Soccer with the New England Revolution and the inaugural season of Wellington’s Phoenix in the A-League last year.
He admits he sometimes looks at his younger brother with good-natured envy as he jets around the world, playing tournaments in exotic locations like Brazil, Los Angeles, France and Thailand.
“I could have quite easily gone and done what he’s done - it would be cool to be going to all those places but I also know it’s pretty tough with all the travel. I’ve lived out of a suitcase for a while and it’s fun for a while but I don’t know if I could do it for an extended period of time. I also don’t think people really appreciate how hard Jase and Kirk have to work both on and off the court ... but it would be pretty cool!”
Best Mates
It wasn’t always so friendly. The competitive juices of eager young sportsmen often overflowed into fully-fledged battles.
“I was a bit more of a bully because I’m older and I had to protect my territory!” Tony laughs. “There were a few battles and a few toys thrown occasionally but we weren’t too bad.”
Jason disagrees slightly, albeit with the same chuckle. “There have been some huge bust-ups - we are two really competitive guys who hate to lose at anything. When we were young we played pretty much all sports and I can’t really remember any of them finishing without some bust-ups. As we got older we got a lot better at controlling ourselves - but we still really hate to lose!”
Luckily childhood rivalry turned firstly into competitive admiration, and then to fully-fledged friendship.
The brothers are best mates these days, with the added advantage of similar careers as professional sportsmen. “We’ve always been good mates, but when we were younger it was a lot more up and down,” Jason says. “Now that we are older, we are really good mates all the time, and what’s really good having a brother/best mate that plays professional sport as well is that we both understand what the other is going through.”
These days, older sister Tracey and the proud parents are more than content on the sidelines as the two younger Lochheads take them on spectating journeys all over the world.
That suits Pixie Lochhead just fine, musing as she casts her eye over the grassy backyard haven where it all began.“I don’t think it really matters what your kids do - all you want is for them to find their own passions,” Pixie explains. “Parents can only do so much and then the passion has to come from within. If they haven’t got it, no-one can drive them.”
She admits while Tony’s soccer career was relatively straight-forward, she had a few qualms about letting her youngest travel the world playing beach volleyball. “It was a little unbelievable really. When he missed out to his brother going to the Youth Olympics, I always said to Jase his day would come - but they didn’t have the Youth Olympics again. I had no idea he was going to be doing all this travelling at this stage.”
Jason just hopes his folks get as much pleasure as they can from their successful children. He reckons it’s the least the kids can do to repay their parents after all that lost income from those fruit trees sacrificed on the altar of sport, all those years ago.
“Our parents are two really amazing people, and having them to learn from when we were younger I think has helped us to turn out to be the people we are today.”
