Champ rower, rugby talent dies aged 20
By EVAN PEGDEN - Waikato Times
TIMES FILE
GLORY DAYS: Tyler Sherman rowing for Hamilton Boys' High in 2007.
Sherman, who was a member of the Waikato Rugby Union Academy, was found dead at the home where he boarded in Cambridge on Tuesday night. An autopsy revealed he died of natural causes.
WRU talent identification and player development manager Mike Crawford described the young lock's death as an enormous shock to all who knew him.
Sherman was originally from Wanganui where he attended Wanganui High and rowed for the Aramoho club.
His size won him a berth in the gold-winning eight at the junior world champs in Amsterdam in 2006 and the next year he moved to Hamilton Boys' High and helped the school win the Maadi Cup before going on to win a junior world champs silver medal in the New Zealand under-19 eight in Beijing.
In 2008 he went to the under-23 world champs but the eight missed the A final.
"He played a little bit of rugby at Boys' High but it might only have been seconds or thirds. Rowing had always been his No1," Crawford said.
Sherman made the decision to switch from rowing to rugby and had made it into the provincial academy based purely on his size and physicality.
"He was two metres and [had] a big frame. He was just a big fella and you don't get too many of those guys out there who are real athletes, especially with his work ethic out of rowing.
"He was a lovely kid and he just decided he had had enough of the rowing and discipline of it in his life and wanted to give rugby a real crack. So we had him in our programme to see what we could do with him, and to be fair he was struggling a little bit technically and tactically to get up to speed at that level.
"But he had the coachability that we backed ourselves to try and help him develop on the field and was going to be a two or three-year project, really," Crawford said.
Sherman played for the Fraser-Tech club, mostly in the senior B side this season, and the club is dedicating today's B clash with Te Rapa at Elliot Park at 1pm to his memory.
There will be a pre-game tribute, then a function to celebrate his life at the clubrooms from 5.30pm. Funeral details have yet to be released.
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