Natasha Robinson was born in Ghana, West Africa.
Travelling back and forward between Australia and Ghana for the first couple of years with her Dad who is from New Zealand (mainly to watch the Wiggles in concert). Natasha made the permanent move to Townsville at the age of 4 where she grew up on a 100 acre block. Tash was used to having jet-skis, motorbikes and scrap cars to drive around in for fun.
Family Life
Tash is the oldest of four children, she has a younger brother (18) and twin sisters (14). With her Dad in New Zealand and having not seen her mum in 18 years since she left Ghana. Tash’s family live all over the world, so she relies on her Netball family to be her support network, and with each team she is a part of she works hard to build friendships that are deeper than surface level.
How important is your grandma to you? What role did she have in your upbringing?
My Grandma is my biggest hype girl and inspiration. She was already 60 years old when she started raising me as a 4 year old and taught me to be kind and understand that I should never accept racism.
“Granny put me on a leash cause I was too fast and she didn’t want me to get run over by a car.”
What barriers did you face growing up?
The distance from the farm to Netball was challenging. My grandma took me to netball every week for the first year that I played and would sit in the car reading or doing sudoku while I trained as it was too far to go home and back.
For morning trainings, my brother and granny would sit at Hungry Jacks for an hour and a half until school started.
The North Queensland community played a massive role in allowing me to continue Netball. For the two years that I was in boarding school, friends would drive out of their way to come and get me to play Netball. When I returned to being a day student, people would either let me stay at their house or my coach would drive the one hour return trip to get me home. This meant that she wouldn’t get home until 10:30pm herself.
My Dad also worked away for most of my childhood in Africa. His roster was 6 months on, 1 month off when I was in Grade 1. This then changed to 3 months on and 1 month off.
I wish he could’ve seen me play as a kid.
Did you make a representative team when you were young?
I played one year of representative netball in 2011 and stopped after that to reduce the constant driving for my Grandma. My next rep team was in 2017 when I moved to Brisbane. I think it’s important for young athletes to know that you can start late and still have success and reach your goals.
What athletes do you idolise and why?
My favourite athlete is LeBron James. At 37, he is still dominating in Basketball and is so unproblematic off the court – with no major scandals, making him an incredible role model. I am an fan of any black athlete as it excites me to see the representation of people of colour in any space.
What is your favourite quote?
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ Martin Luther King Jnr.
Natasha is going into her last year of studying Secondary Education and has now been a long time Tiger.