Zane Tetevano Penrith recruit sledged by his grandmother for being fat
Getting mocked by fans and opposition players is one thing, but your own grandmother? Penrith recruit Zane Tetevano lifts the lid on the cutting insult that spurred his NRL rise.
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ZANE Tetevano was just nine when his grandmother called him fat.
Which had to hurt, right?
Understanding that being tagged the tubbiest kid in your backyard, schoolyard, even on the local footy team, it’s a tough sledge to cop.
But as for being fat shamed by no less than your dear, old nanna …
“Oh, that rocked me, ey,” Tetevano says now, 20 years on.
“At the time, I was nine. Getting around thinking I was pretty handsome, too.
“But then this one day, my best friend told me I was getting big which surprised me.
“So I went home and said to my grandmother ‘hey, am I fat?’.
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“And I can still remember her saying, ‘ah, boy, when you’ve got that second little chin’ ... I couldn’t believe it.”
Seated now at a long, wooden picnic table outside Penrith HQ, Tetevano is talking through a primary school sledge that now sees him looming as the greatest NRL signing nobody is talking about.
A truth proved several months back when Panthers players rolled in for day one of pre-season and found this 29-year-old recruit already on the treadmill.
“No idea what he was doing,” Panthers hooker Api Koroisau recalls. “Stretching, maybe.
“But even as the first blokes were arriving, he was already in doing his thing.”
Has stayed that way throughout summer, too.
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Just ask Penrith High Performance boss Hayden Knowles.
Or Mark Geyer, the Panthers great who keeps hearing stories about the old school recruit going full tilt during opposed sessions.
“Everyone telling me,” MG says, “how much I’d love this guy.”
Which, again, Tetevano credits to that day grandma called him fat.
The Panthers import explaining how, sure, he learned plenty during three years with the Roosters, where the likes of Cooper Cronk and Boyd Cordner show daily what NRL success looks like.
Same deal too, the four winters before that — where Newcastle teammates Kurt Gidley represented Australia on relentlessness and grit.
“But the day nan called me fat,” Tetevano says, “that was when I changed everything.”
For a start, he began drinking coffee.
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The heavy schoolboy convinced that, apart from helping him wake every morning at 5am, said caffeine hit would also prove the perfect fuel for long road runs where his entire body was bandaged in Cling Wrap.
“Or garbage bags,” Tetevano says. “Some days, both.
“Just wrapped myself up completely to sweat.
“And when I started running, even though the image sounds crazy, I found an infectious feeling to it.
“So that first day, it became a week.
“Then a month.
“A year, two years … even now, I still use some of those same training methods I started as a kid.”
Which is why late last year, Panthers coach Ivan Cleary went and signed this 111kg Rooster boasting consecutive NRL premiership campaigns.
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Why back in 2017 too, Roosters boss Trent Robinson gifted a second chance to this Central Coast footballer whose career seemed over after pleading guilty to domestic violence charges.
“And I’ll be forever grateful for what the Roosters did for me,” says Tetevano, who now has a new partner and beautiful young family.
“Robbo and his staff, they gifted me some great tools for not only playing football, but for life off the field too.
“And I’m forever in their debt.
“Yet while I’ll always love the Roosters, it’s now about me helping lead here at Penrith. Stepping up and giving as much as I can.”
And for that, Panthers fans can thank his nan.
Originally published as Zane Tetevano Penrith recruit sledged by his grandmother for being fat