Smart money’s on scholarship winners being next big names in sport

If you want to know who will be the next big names in South West sport, then look no further than this year’s successful Smarter than Smoking (STS) Country Sport Scholarship recipients.

23 September 2009

An annual initiative of the Department of Sport and Recreation (DSR) and Healthway, the scholarships are now in their fifteenth year and assist young regional athletes to overcome barriers such as distance from facilities, competitions, development opportunities and coaches in their pursuit of state and national representation.

Sixty eight South West athletes involved in 20 different sports competing at national and international level were awarded scholarships from a pool of over 200 applicants state-wide.

"Regional Western Australia has long been a gold mine of talented athletes in a range of sports, however without the help of scholarships like these you would have to wonder how many of the athletes would be able to reach their full potential," DSR South West manager Troy Jones said.

"The scholarships have over the past 15 years helped hundreds of athletes achieve their sporting goals."

Anthony Morabito, 17 has been kicking a footy around the Harvey town oval for as long as he can remember and is a great example of a South West STS scholarship recipient destined for big things in AFL football.

"It was a pretty big honour being recognised with the Smarter than Smoking scholarship, there's a lot of talent in the South West so it's great to be recognised as one of the elite athletes," Mr Morabito said.

"The scholarship will help pay for my travel to the AFL draft camps at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra at the end of September and I'll be able to get all the equipment I need like boots and pay for pool and gym memberships keep yourself fit for (the draft)."

The STS scholarship athletes also have the opportunity to learn about areas such as nutrition, time management and goal setting, drugs in sport and athlete leadership through the Gifted Athlete Program (GAP) program developed by DSR and the Western Australian Institute of Sport (WAIS).

"It puts more pressure on you to behave outside of your sport but you've got to have that kind of maturity in the top levels so it's a good learning curve," Mr Morabito said.

Anthony's selection into the 2009 All Australian AFL U18's team is a great achievement, a fact not lost on the articulate 17 year old.

"It's a very big honour to be one of 22 people under 18 selected, you can tell a lot of the players selected are going to be stars in the future, and it's rewarding to know that all the hard yards in training have paid off."

Changes to the STS scholarships this year mean applications are now assessed against a series of performance categories and conducted on a state-wide basis, plus additional support is available to talented athletes who reside more than 500 km from Perth.

For more information on the Smarter than Smoking Country Sport Scholarships contact Samantha Shields.