The Central Coast Academy of Sport’s (CCAS) annual Indigenous Talent ID Day (ITID) turned out to be another great day for the 80 plus students who attended and enjoyed the games and festivities at Terrigal’s Scholastic Sports Stadium.
“While the weather was causing problems across the Coast, the only issue at the stadium was fitting six sports into the two-hall area,” said Emily BurgessMoore, CCAS Events Manager. The concept of an ITID Day was developed in partnership between the CCAS and Underwriting Agencies Australia (UAA), with a focus to ‘unearth’ local indigenous talent from the Central Coast region, and to then be able to provide full scholarships to CCAS Sports Programs. An interim program was introduced in 2017, where, Mark Tipple, the CCAS Program Manager, actively took part to allow the identified athletes to participate in an eight-week tabloid training program. This too had outstanding results. Six sporting disciplines were again in action, AFL, basketball, netball, golf, touch football, and test and measurements, under the watchful eyes of some of the region’s best coaches.
“The end goal is to select recipients for scholarships, as the Academy now has the capacity to provide full sporting scholarships to 20 athletes across the Academy’s 14 scholarship programs,” Tipple said. Michael Murphy, the CEO of UAA, said of the TID Day: “UAA does much of our work in regional centres throughout NSW, and we are delighted to partner with the CCAS to provide this unique opportunity locally. “I understand this program is unmatched across NSW, so we are delighted to be supporting something very unique to the Central Coast. “UAA has watched closely for a number of years, and the growth and acceptance of this program is really impressive. “We are delighted with how the event is run and the extension into the CCAS Tabloid Program, or the full CCAS Sports Program, is just fantastic.” Burgess-Moore said ITID Day was a huge success.
“The day was quite remarkable, the high level of coaches that we had on hand to coordinate the day made this event possible. “I can’t thank our coaches enough, they readily volunteer their support and when our office reached out to them for assistance, we were overwhelmed by their willingness to get involved and to make the day the success it was,” BurgessMoore said. “The Academy really has done something very special in partnership with UAA, so hats off to UAA to provide the financial support to make this day, and the scholarships that follow, a reality for our region and the athletes who took part,” she added.
Source: Media release, Mark Tipple, Central Coast Academy of Sport