by Charlotte Evans

Linda Vagana knows what it's like to live with public expectations.

And she lives with more of them than most. Not only is she a popular and high profile member of the national netball team the Silver Ferns, she is also a minister's daughter.

Linda was 18 when her father, Rev Uiva Vagana of North Shore Pacific Island Church in Auckland, graduated from Knox and entered the ministry.

"All of a sudden there were these leadership qualities you had to adopt. You found yourself - not by choice - in all sorts of clubs related to the church. If it wasn't youth group, you were in bible study, the choir. It got to the level where we were expected to attend every single thing that was happening."

Her growing success in netball brought its own pressures. Linda, who turns 31 this year, has been with the Ferns squad since 1992 (her test debut was at the beginning of 1993).

"You have your church expectations of being a minister's daughter and all the obligations you take along with it. Then with the Silver Ferns, there are expectations with that as well. A lot of our games are played on Sunday at that level and it got really hard that I wasn't attending church - particularly because I was the minister's daughter and not attending on Sundays."

But, she says, her close-knit Samoan family has always been incredibly supportive.

"It was a testing time and it was one of the many trials that I went through but the weekends aren't the only time that you spend with God, it's through the week as well. Whatever attitude you have on a Sunday should be the same every other day - that was probably one of the best things Dad ever shared with me and I've just taken that through everything that I do."

The fact Linda is somewhat of a role model in the community is something she tries to use to positively influence the kids in the youth programmes she's voluntarily involved with.
"I'm basically helping out and letting them know that I'm just like them - and they too can do well in anything they have a desire for - it may not be in sport - but they can also be successful in whatever field they choose."

Six years ago, she started an organisation called North Shore Pasifika Youth, running holiday youth programmes. But the growing mountain of paperwork and regulations now attached to such an enterprise has forced her to cut it back this year and simply focus on a weekly Friday night meeting using the church group as a base.

On top of her ongoing church and netball commitments (she has made herself available for selection for the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England, in July), Linda works as a marketing co-ordinator for the AUT Faculty of Arts and is finishing off a Bachelor's Degree in Social Sciences which she's been doing part-time over the past three years. "If I had time I probably would have finished it by now," she comments wryly.