20th Anniversary of academy athlete development

Written on the 5 June 2017 by SWSAS

THE South West Sydney Academy of Sport will celebrate 20 years of supporting our regions talented up and coming Academy 'sports stars' and its high achieving past sporting heroes, at its upcoming 28 July 'Graduation and Sports Awards' Dinner.

The Academy's executive director Gerry Knights is certain that this special event will be a 700 guest sell-out. He said that he was pleased that the Academy could once again hold the event at Campbelltown Catholic Club's 'The CUBE' entertainment centre.

The Catholic Club is the 'naming rights' sponsor of the Academy and a venue of this quality is most worthy of this event.

The evening will include a special address from the NSW Minister for Sport, The Hon.

Stuart Ayres and appropriate recognition by all three levels of government, plus orations from past local Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

The event will also support the Academy's goal of providing development opportunities for local sport and entertainment career seeking youth, by providing emcee opportunities for the Academy's sports athletes and the engagement of students' from Campbelltown's Performing Arts High School,  as artists and back of stage management staff.

Knights continued by saying, it will be a very tough task for the Academy's award selection panel this year, due to the commencement of additional sports programs in 2017 and the overall diversity of sports (17), the Academy now supports.

The Academy has a large number of high achieving athletes to select from who have been selected in 2017 NSW and Australian aged teams, or have achieved outstanding personal athlete success, during the past 12 months.

But, this is only part of being a holistic athlete as far as the Academy award selection panel is concerned.

The panel is looking for those special athletes that possess the defining personal qualities of a positive attitude, total commitment to task, leadership, respect and responsibility, and a commitment to community.

These are the virtues that set special athletes above the rest; and the calibre of recent athlete achievements will also ensure whoever wins the 'athlete of the year' award; will be a very special athlete, said Knights.

The 'athlete of the year' award was shared for the first time in 2016, with outstanding wheelchair basketball  Para-athlete Jessica Cronje and Australian representative softballer Blake Jackson being named joint winners of the top award.

This special event will be held 6.30pm for 7.00pm, Friday 28 July 2017.

Tickets are available to the community by contacting the Academy james.watson@swsas.org.au or 02 4627 7622 with ticket sales closing Thursday 13 July, or when sold out.