| Notes |
- «b»Obituary: Jack Botha: Sports writer and sportsman
«/b»Chris Barron | 18 September, 2011 01:06
«b»Jack Botha, who has died in Prince Albert in the Karoo at the age of 98, was a sports writer for the Sunday Times for 61 years. He was also a legendary rock climber, opening several of the most famous routes in the Drakensberg.
«/b»Botha was born on a farm in Schweizer-Reneke in what is now North West, on February 15 1913. His parents ran out of money and moved to Port Elizabeth. Botha was sent to Grey High School where, as the only Afrikaans speaker and a very small lad to boot, he was always picked on.
He took up boxing to defend himself, and subsequently became an SA Police bantamweight champion, started his own club and trained several future amateur champions.
After school he studied theology at Stellenbosch University for a year before the money ran out.
This being the time of the Great Depression, jobs were hard to come by and he joined the government's public works programme in East London. Shoulder to shoulder with his father and brothers, he worked as a labourer at the docks.
In 1934 he joined the SA Mounted Police. He left four years later to become a physical training instructor at Parktown Boys and Highlands North high schools in Johannesburg and later got himself a job at the Modderfontein dynamite factory.
While doing all this he began, in 1939, to report on sport for the Sunday Times, Sunday Express and Rand Daily Mail.
During World War 2 the sports desk was understaffed and, after a full day at the dynamite factory, Botha would help the chief typesetter to bring out the sports pages.
His greatest moment as a sports reporter was being at the ringside when Vic Toweel won the world bantamweight title.
He also wrote about South African golfing legend Bobby Locke, and about Gary Player when he was just one of a bunch of promising youngsters.
After watching Player win the Eastern Transvaal championships, Botha wrote that he had just seen the player who would become greater than Locke.
His editor, Eric Litchfield, cut that part of his story, telling him: "People will laugh at us if we say that. No one can be greater than Bobby Locke."
Botha knew the rugby scene intimately, from club level up to the Springboks. He knew and wrote about most of the legends of the game including Basie van Wyk, Okey Geffin, Wilf Rosenberg and, the greatest of all in his book, Springbok No 8 Hennie Muller.
He was banned from Ellis Park by the then president of Transvaal rugby, Sandy Sanderson, for writing articles calling for professionalism.
He knew the cricket scene intimately too. He reported on most of the stars of the time, including John Waite, Hugh Tayfield, Colin Bland and Ali Bacher.
There was hardly a sport Botha did not report on with impressive authority. He covered swimming, athletics, squash, table tennis, baseball and ice hockey, among others. He couldn't get enough of it. In his late 80s he had an operation on a Friday and wanted to book himself out of hospital to cover a rugby match on Saturday.
For most of his sports writing career he had parallel jobs. He was an industrial paint salesman and ran a nursery which dealt in rare succulents, a passion of his.
While writing about everyone else's exploits, Botha was very unassuming about his own. What few people outside climbing circles knew was that he was one of South Africa's most accomplished rock climbers.
He opened a number of the most famous and difficult climbs in the Drakensberg, including, in 1941, Monk's Cowl. The year before, South Africa's greatest climber of the day, Dick Barry, had died in the attempt.
He was also one of the first to "ring" the Bell. The popular Hooper's route to the top was actually led by Botha, although he kept quiet about it for years. The opening of Mponjwan was in fact summitted by him, solo, prior to the "official" opening summit party years later.
Climbers in those days had none of the equipment they have now. Botha would wear boots until he reached the really tricky stuff, at which point he would swap them for takkies.
At the age of 80 he climbed Champagne Castle so that he could look down, one last time, on Monk's Cowl below.
Botha is survived by four sons. His wife, Winnie, died five years ago.
«u»<http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/commentary/2011/09/18/obituary-jack-botha-sports-writer-and-sportsman>«/u»
«u»Drakensberg «/u»- «u»Climbing «/u»Written by Peter Adrian Friday, 16 September 2011 10:05
At the age of 98, Jack Botha passed away peacefully, and I doubt whether many of his contemporaries are still around to do justice in honouring this great South African climbing legend.
I had the pleasure of meeting Jack in Prince Albert were he retired, and by then he was already in his 90's, a little hard of hearing, but as lucid as ever. I listened in awe to his accounts of his many pioneering accents of South Africa's famous routes.
How, together with Hans Wong(chowski), Emil Ruhle and Tony Hooper, he opened Monks Cowl (after Dick Barry's death). How he was one of the first to "Ring" the Bell in the Drakensberg, and I recall him setting the record straight that the popular Hooper's route was in fact led by him, but at the time he modestly did not bother to argue for its name; and that the opening of Mponjwan was in fact summited by him, solo, prior to the "official" opening summit party years later.
Having climbed a few of his routes over the years, I can only say that there was a man who really had what it took. After struggling up Straight Edge in Mhlabatini*, and desperately thrusting a few hundred Rands' worth of cams into the off-width, I realised that it was opened in 1940, without modern climbing gear of any sort – no cams, nuts, hexes, chalk or climbing shoes; just a pair of steal nuts. Then there was a "F3, (16)" route opened in 1942 (again solo) in Upper Tonquani*, that I decided to try. After turning white and quivering up almost every pitch due to the complete lack of any gear placements, I seconded the last pitch; and if it were not for a lot of tight rope on the final awkward power move to gain the summit, I would still be floundering. I muttered an expletive in Jack Botha's general direction as I dragged myself onto the belay ledge, gasping. At that point I wondered what a man of such power, endurance and bloody-mindedness would be capable of in this modern age of technical w
So, next time you feel sandbagged on a route opened by someone soloing in an age before your father was born, remember the name Jack Botha, and know that his pioneering spirit lingers in every crack and cranny of the beautiful crags of South Africa.
Jack Botha we salute you.
http://www.vertical-endeavour.com/drakensberg/22-climbing/208-in-memory-of-jack-botha.html
Accessed 29 Sept 2011
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1913 - 2011 (98 years)
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