PINOZ Bevan Calvert was only 18 when he scored five goals playing for Australia against mighty Croatia, past the world’s best goalkeeper, at the 2005 World Handball Championships in Tunisia.
Australia went down, 38-18, but the young Australian’s speed and court savvy must have bedazzled Europe, undisputed capital of handball in the world: Here was a kid from the land Down Under, a country where handball was little known and hardly a major code among sports, and he was putting some of Europe’s brightest stars in the shade.
The European press danced to the new kid on the block. Calvert became the glamour boy from Oz and a focus of stories in sports pages the next day.
The Croatian World Network website, for one, featured the right-winger from Australia in its main picture. The editor said he had picked the image from among a hundred ”because it captured the passion, intensity and gracefulness of the player”.
At the Oceania Handball Qualifier in 2012, the trophy for top goal-scorer went to Calvert. ”It was a pleasant surprise because I do not always keep score on my goals,” he said.
But the selectors did. They eventually rewarded him with the Australian team captaincy at the 2012 Oceania Qualifier and then to the 2013 World Handball Championships in Spain last January. It was his fifth appearance at the world championships.
It was also a landmark achievement for the Filipino-Australian community: Bevan Calvert, of Turramurra NSW, became the first Australian captain of any sport with Filipino heritage.
Bevan was born in Sydney on April 4, 1986, to Qantas executive John Calvert and Violi, a Filipina who now works as a freelance journalist and broadcaster. Older brother Tim plays district soccer for North Sydney United.
The boys were into sports from the early age of six, according to Mrs Calvert. Bevan played everything from handball and basketball to tennis, cricket, volleyball, netball, and athletics.
He was named Senior Sportsman of the Year at his Turramurra High School, in Sydney’s north shore, following his handball team’s Cup win at the NSW State Schools Challenge in 2001.
Calvert has been completely committed to handball, moving from local level to national and international status. He has played for Australia in four world championships and a number of other international tournaments.
Calvert also turned semi-professional, but has had to move to Europe to follow his dream: to a first division club in Denmark for three years and then to TSV Altenholz Handball Club in Germany, where he is now based.
He may have reached the top of his game and provided Filipino-Australian sports men and women a reason to believe in themselves capable of achieving ”greatness” ~ for lack of another word to describe Bevan Calvert’s fortune ~ but he shows no sign of stopping there.
Quo vadis, Bevan?
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PICTURES
Top right, Bevan Calvert striking for Australia.
Lower left: Bevan Calvert celebrates another goal for Australia.
