From Kmart Compression Bags to Upstate New York: How the Boys Ended Up in the USA

If you told me five years ago that both of my boys would be living in Upstate New York chasing professional athlete dreams, I would have laughed you out of the room.

The truth is, the boys didn't even take basketball seriously until Hunter was about 13 or 14. Before the hardwood came calling, our lives revolved around a completely different game. Huge shoutout to the Auckland United Football Club - both boys were playing high-level soccer. In fact, when Hunter first started at St Kentigern College on a basketball scholarship, soccer was still his number-one sport! He was balancing the high-performance demands of both worlds simultaneously.

The Foundation of Busy Kiwi Lads

Along the way, they were your typical hyperactive Kiwi lads. They did karate, played water polo, ran around on the rugby field, dabbled in squash, played indoor netball, and made a few athletic day appearances. We were just sports parents living in the beautiful chaos of weekend logistics. Keeping them busy so they kept out of trouble was a parenting ideal passed down from my own mum—not to mention all the incredible life lessons that come from team sports and physical discipline.

A massive piece of that foundation was karate. Grinding all the way up to their 2nd brown belts, karate was a constant, consistent anchor for the boys. It didn't just build their physical core; it built their focus and mental resilience. A huge shoutout to Chante Betham and the team at Joyshimon Shorin-Ryu Onehunga for instilling those lifelong values in our boys from an early age.

We also owe that all to Nana Lynn, who originally found karate for them, made it their thing, and would take them week in and week out. She holds down the fort exactly the same way now for Kyla-Rae with her ballet. Although, the boys love to harp on about how Kyla-Rae should be made to do karate as well... I’m just like, "Bruh... shut up. Are you her parent? And secondly, did we make you do ballet? STFU then!" lol.

The Ray Cameron Effect & The Māori Nationals Vibe

So, how did hoops completely take over? It all started with a classic bit of sports recruitment by Ray Cameron. He roped my husband, Val, into playing for Ngāpuhi at the Aotearoa Māori Nationals in Rotorua, which takes place at the end of every January. It’s hilarious because, at the time, Val hadn't even officially made the connection to his Ngāpuhi side yet, and there was no Tūhoe team for him to play for. For those of you who know Ray, you know he has an absolute gift for tracking down talent and pulling a squad together from thin air.

The boys started tagging along down to Rotorua with Val. The first year, Cooper was just a chatty ten-year-old sidekick. True to form, he was running around being the team's ultimate ball boy, learning the bench rules, and running enthusiastic commentary from the sideline.

The following year, Ray put Coopz in a team—the Ngāpuhi U13 B squad—and Val coached them. Jayden Cecil came back for that tournament and was right there in the mix, and Hunter ended up playing in that team too, right after returning from a soccer trip in Japan. Val even got to hit the hardwood with a few up-and-coming NBL stars back then, playing alongside the likes of Tukaka Cooper, Hyrum Harris, and Jaylen Gerrand. Māori Nationals is still an absolute highlight for me. It’s grassroots, it’s rugged, and the vibe is unmatched. The best part? No matter where you place on the ladder, every single last game ends with an epic, respectful Haka-Off.

Navigating the Wild West of Basketball Reps

Through part of this, we got a random call from Ray: "What are the boys doing? Are they playing basketball for anyone? Do they want to play Hoopnation? Do they want to play for Northland?"

Coming from the netball world myself, this absolutely baffled me. In netball, the pathway is rigid: you play for a school or club in your area, play at the netball centre in that area, get nominated for rep trials, and get selected. If you don't make the cut, only then can you look elsewhere. But in Auckland, the boys were just playing school mini-ball and local random tournaments while focusing heavily on soccer and water polo. They weren't "identified," they weren't on anyone's radar, and we hadn't seen any advertising for reps or how the system even worked. So when Ray asked, we happily agreed to let them play for whatever teams he was building.

The real competitive turning point was the Inaugural Junior Showcase year playing for ACB. Hunter made the top U13 team and won the championship, which is where he first met and played alongside Jackson Kiss. Cooper, being younger, made the development team, though he spent the entire tournament running around with his arm in a support brace because he’d broken it not long before the tournament tipped off.

Setbacks, Goals, and The Shift in Vision

Long before the tournament trophies, we always sat down with the boys to write out their goals and still do this to this day. This is utterly painful during some sessions, but I insist we all do it including us as parents and now Kyla-Rae. We still have these old goal sheets today, and it is pretty cool to see how many they have ticked off already. "Professional Sports Person" was scribbled on those sheets from day dot. As basketball took over their hearts, that goal refined into a singular focus: Go to College in the USA.

Hunter eventually entered the national selection cycle, but his pathway wasn't a smooth ride. For his age group, he actually missed the first cut to travel to Guam for the Oceania qualifiers. We were gutted and fiercely protective - we all felt he absolutely deserved to be on that plane. But looking back, him not making this team was the best thing that could have ever happened to him.

Hunter had a choice: he could get sour, point fingers, and blame selectors (Lets be real, I was already doing that quietly to Val.lol), or he could double down on The Work Don't Lie. Lucky for me I had Val to help me mediate my mothers broken heart but it helped me realize the narrative you feed and expose your kid to in this space is extremely important. We had actually experienced something similar in the soccer space previously when Hunter went on tour to Japan with his club. They took two teams over and then split them to play in the tournaments once they arrived. Hunter made the second team. We were probably more cut about it than he was, and honestly, we didn’t understand it at the time.

But we chose not to jump on the phones or message the coaches whinging about it. We let it play out. Upon his return, and before the next season started, we called a formal meeting with the coaches. With a little bit of guidance behind the scenes, we made Hunter explain his goals for the upcoming season himself and ask the coach directly what he thought he could improve on to help him reach these goals. Val and I stayed as quiet as humanly possible so Hunter could get comfortable asking these tough direct questions for himself.

We have seen far too often parents having these chats for their kids. They don't know what their kid is actually like in training or in the locker room, and half the time, the parents don't even understand the coaching philosophy or deliverables. What are you teaching your child by having these conversations on their behaalf.
Often this can come across as the parent vicariously living through their child. or the kid being mollycoddled. 
I do understand our kids don't often have the skills or confidence to have these conversations sometimes so by all means be there to support them but your kid needs to know how to ask these questions and receive the answers. Parents too to be honest.
And you have to be honestly ready to receive the feedback, you might not get the answer you were hoping for.

Thankfully, in the basketball situation, Hunter chose to put his head down and work. He made them have to pick him next time. He fought his way back into the squad, flying to Qatar for the Asia Cup, and then onto Turkey for the World Cup, where the NZ team secured an historic 4th-place finish in the world. Hunter didn't have massive minutes, probably a comfortable 6 or 7th man alongside Jackson, but he executed his role perfectly. It actually took hearing opposition benches yell out, "Watch out for the shooter! Shooter here!" for him to finally believe that he was exactly that: an elite shooter that can compete with the best across the world!

Finding the Right Channel to the States

Coming back to the NZ high school competition after playing a World Cup in Turkey was a massive mental shift. Jackson Kiss was already in talks to finish his high school years at Utah Prep, and known stars like Oscar and Hayden had already committed to colleges. Hunter felt like his development would stall here in NZ in the following year with a number of his peers not in the landscape and it felt like the time was right to make a move.

As a mum, I wasn't ready to let him go to high school overseas. I wanted him to wait for college. Some international options were thrown our way, but honestly, a lot of the communication from some of these options were vague, messy, and didn't sit right with my control-freak nature.

We had met Stevie from Forge Sport. He had been incredibly patient, coming through all the proper channels, and we finally sat down with him during a previous trip to Wellington. He was a breath of fresh air—clear, direct, and completely honest about our options. However, as fate would have it, just two weeks after engaging with Stevie, a connection with Sparky Dickel via Lindsay presented a crazy connection to the legendary BABC program and Darrow School in New York. Sparky had played for a coach who had a strong connection to another coach, and that’s exactly how the reach extended all the way to Darrow. We got on video calls with the Sports Director at Darrow and Coach Tone, signed with Lighthouse Management (whom we've since parted ways with, but remain forever grateful to for the connection), and the path was set.

We agreed he'd finish school Nationals in NZ out of respect for St Kentigern College, kitted him out with some trusty $15 compression bags from Kmart to save our bank account from terminal airline baggage fees, and then boarded a flight to New York to drop our oldest boy off.

The Te Ratana Standard Opens the Next Door

Darrow School loved Hunter. He did incredibly well his first year, both on the court and hitting the academic honors lists. Because of the standard Hunter set, the relationships we built as a family, and the numbers Cooper was starting to put up back home in NZ, Darrow also offered Cooper a position there for the following year.

And that is the raw story of how an indigenous Māori and Samoan whānau from Auckland ended up with two boys at a top Prep School in Upstate New York. It wasn't an accident. It was goal-setting, grassroots grinding, surviving massive setbacks, and proving every single day that Character is Currency.