Duane Heath has officially been appointed sports columnist of The Big Issue.

The Big Issue"s management and editorial team welcomed the move.

"We are thrilled to have Duane on board. His writing is absolutely fabulous. I didn"t think he"d be able to better his first column—it was really good—but he filed a second one, equally as good and has written another fabulous piece for this month"s issue," says Donald Paul, editor of The Big Issue.

Duane brings 15 years of experience in publishing and sports journalism to the table. He has worked for News24, "SA City Life", "Rugby World" and the London-based Guardian and Observer newspapers, among other publications. Earlier this year, he opened his own company, Crossbar Media.

His contribution to The Big Issue couldn"t have come at a better time.

"I know Donald from working with him at "SA City Life". He and I met for lunch and I just happened to mention that I wanted to write a sports column—and that"s how it started. I feel I have something to write that is a little bit different," says Duane.

Duane"s columns cover a wide range of issues in the South African sports industry, and he does so through a rich narrative that explores the mixed palette of human emotions.

"I"m not really writing about sport, I"m writing about people. Everybody"s got a story and it"s just about bringing that out," says Duane. "Like the coach in my first column, I could"ve written a straightforward article on how his team from the Transkei won their game at Craven Week, but I was more interested in knowing where he came from to get to that point.

"At the end of the day what is he, but a school teacher in the middle of nowhere who has this dream that his kids are going to beat the best guys from the Big City? And that"s what they did. Everybody"s got a dream like that—it"s a classic rags to riches story."

Duane is particularly passionate about the development of black sports players. His most recent assignment has seen him help produce a TV documentary on Progress, a black rugby team from the Eastern Cape.

"For 100 years black people have played rugby in the townships of the Eastern Cape; they"ve always played rugby in the townships it"s just that nobody knew or cared. Now we are finding out more. In those townships, the guys live for their rugby. Everyone can say they love rugby, but for people who work in a factory, seven days a week, 365 days a year, rugby becomes an escape - that"s all they"ve got and by that I mean they really cherish it – they make it their life."

Duane had the privilege of interacting with some of South Africa"s top black sportsmen as a child. His father was a professional boxer who 30 years ago fought alongside SA great Tap Tap Makhathini. His uncle was a Comrades Marathon runner.

Duane lapses into a favourite memory of him. "I was five years old. My uncle had just finished the Two Oceans race. He was driving back from Cape Town and he stopped by our house and with him was this black guy, Vincent Rakabaele, who had just won the race. Growing up with my dad and my uncle being around black sportsmen prepared me to take the time to listen to their stories.

"The things that happen to you as a child become a part of you and you don"t even realise it. I never thought much of it at the time, but now that I"m grown up I look back and I see how those experiences shaped me, and I realised I was pretty privileged to have had these guys around. From then on it was always about sports for me."

Combining his love for sports with a passion for writing, Duane studied journalism at Natal Technikon and started his first reporter"s job working for a community newspaper on the KZN South Coast.

Thinking back to the very first article he wrote, he pauses, and then his eyes light up as he remembers: "I interviewed Penny Heyns, the woman who won Olympic gold in 1996 for swimming. She went to the same high school as me. I was the first person to ever interview her."

This would set the tone for brighter things to come.

"I"m lucky in that I come across people whom I find very interesting whether I"m drawn to them, or through pure luck or coincidence. I just happen to run across that coach, or those guys at Progress who achieved that great victory, or happened to have a father who fought against Tap Tap Makhathini. It"s about recognising when that moment comes and thinking, let me see what they have to say."

But of the many articles Duane has written there"s one that stands out for him.

"That was the interview with Tap Tap Makhathini, 30 years after he sparred against my father," he says. "He used to play soccer all day and box all night. If there is one article, that would be it.

"Having said that I"m really enjoying writing the articles that I"m doing now. What happens before a game and what happens after the wins and the losses is where the real stories begin. I"m interested in how these circumstances change a person."

"And then you have those moments in a game when things can"t get any worse and you"ve lost the biggest match of your life—but then the beautiful thing about life is that the next day comes—and then you think how am I going to fix that, what"s my next challenge, can I avenge that defeat? That"s where sport turns into life. And that"s not just sport, that"s humanity."