The first Far West Sporting Hall of Fame members are gathering. Stuart Kavanagh spoke with former University of Hawaii Offensive Tackle, and Australian gridiron legend Paul Manera about the honour and his upcoming visit to the Hill.
Stuart Kavanagh: You are being inducted into the RDA Far West Sporting Hall of Fame for your exploits on the gridiron. Tell us a bit about how you got involved in American Football.
Paul Manera: Well, we moved from Broken Hill and I started playing rugby in Sydney as a young boy. And then I started watching Gridiron on TV around the time of the ‘81 Super Bowl, I think. From there I learned the rules and back then NFL was very small in Australia. I only played socially with mates.
I heard a couple of mates talking about Gridiron try-outs, so I just went there and tried out. I ended up playing in Australia for four years, and then some coaches from the University of Hawaii came out to do some clinics, and they ended up setting me up at a small college in Fulton, Mississippi called Itawamba. I made the team there and got a scholarship, then the coach at the University of Hawaii offered me a full scholarship to play there.
SK: You started as a defensive end when you were in Mississippi, and as you as you bulked up, they moved you to offensive tackle and that’s where you made your home in the game.
PM: That’s right, yeah. When I went over there, I was about 97 kilos and I got up to about 117-118 kilos. So, I put on about 20, it was a good 20 though [laughs]. I was an academic all-conference selection my senior year and then in 1992 I graduated with a degree in business in finance.
Then I came back to Australia and started coaching. I’ve been coaching ever since 1992. I was a player coach, but then when I finished playing, I continued coaching.
SK: You have coached all over the place. I was particularly curious about your stint coaching in Japan with Recruit Seagulls (now Obic Seagulls), tell us about the experience of coaching professionally over there.
PM: It was very good. I had to learn to speak Japanese to coach over there, so they sent me for private lessons every day for six weeks, so I’d go for two hours a day. And at the language school, they only teach you everyday Japanese so I had to ask the coaches how to say things like, “give me two lines of five people standing next to each other but opposite each other, each one facing each other,” and other football specific stuff.
They’re very disciplined over there. I would work 15–16-hour days. So, it was long days, but incredibly rewarding.
SK: You’ve done a lot for the game of American football in Australia. Have you ever coached anyone who has made the big time?
PM: There’s a guy now – Adam Gotsis – and he plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL. He was a second-round draft pick for the Denver Broncos, he played four years there and then they traded him to the Jacksonville Jaguars, who made the playoffs this year.
There is a bunch of people that I’ve helped get scholarships to universities overseas, two of them are in the NFL. The other one is Matt Leo who is on the practice squad for the Philadelphia Eagles.
SK: Tell us about your connection to Broken Hill and the Far West.
PM: Well my grandad migrated out to Menindee in 1950, then he brought my dad and the rest of the family out. Then the Manera family moved from Menindee to Broken Hill in 1956
Dad was a baker and delivered bread around town, before he became a miner. He bought a block of land and built his house on Cummins Lane and that’s where I lived. I had family on Chapple Lane and Oxide Street too. We even lived on Argent Street for a while after Dad sold his place before we moved to Sydney when I was six. I still try and come back as much as I can, and whenever I do I have to get a pastie. They don’t do pasties like that in Sydney.
“When I come back, I have reached out to some schools to run some Flag Football clinics for the kids.”
Whenever I come back, it is like muscle memory kicks in and I know exactly how to get where I want to go. It’s been 50 years since I lived in Broken Hill – it has such good memories for me.
ST: Any plans on coming back any time soon?
PM: Yes, for the induction in February. When I come back, I have reached out to some schools to run some Flag Football clinics for the kids to try through mine and my wife Melissa’s company, Bring it on Sports. We teach sports, dance, fitness, wellness and self-fitness programmes. So, it’d be great to bring some American Football to Broken Hill.
