ASC National Coaching Scholarship

The Australian Sports Commission's National Coaching Scholarship Program aims to assist in the development of potential future high performance coaches. The program is built on the desire to provide a career pathway for the coaches upon completion of the scholarship.

The structure for this intense learning program involves the scholarship coach spending twelve to 24 months under the supervision of an elite mentor coach with an elite team or program.

Interested applicants are advised that the following would be ideal experiences to support any application:

Level 2 Volleyball / Beach Volleyball Coach accreditation;
Coaching experience at the State level, including the coaching of teams at the Australian Junior Volleyball Championships and/or Australian Junior Beach Volleyball Championships;
Experience as a coach in both Volleyball and Beach Volleyball; and
Previous involvement with the national program, either as a coach at junior and/or youth levels or an observational experience at a national training program.

If interested in setting up the opportunity to do the latter, please contact John Cheadle, email: john.cheadle@avf.org.au

For more information about the ASC National Coaching Scholarship Program in general please visit the ASC National Coaching Scholarship Program web page.

2009 Coaching Scholarship

2008 Coaching Scholarship
The Australian Sports Commission will not be advertising scholarships for 2008. This is reflective of a desire moving forward to have scholarships of two years in length, with the two year cycle starting in an odd year (e.g. 2009, 2011, ...) so that the second year can take in a major international event such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games or World Championships.

2007 Coaching Scholarship
The Australian Volleyball Federation has once again been successful in receiving from the Australian Sports Commission a scholarship as part of the National Coaching Scholarship Program (NCSP). 2007 will mark the thirteenth year out of the last 15 that the AVF has been a recipient of a scholarship.

The scholarship coach will be Michael Nelson. Michael is currently employed as the Development Manager with Volleyball SA, but has significant experience as a coach and over the past few years has been heavily involved in highly successful state and national athlete development programs in both disciplines of the sport.

Michael's scholarship will primarily be based in Adelaide at the AIS Beach Volleyball Centre of Excellence and will commence in early January. His mentor will be Steve Tutton, AIS Beach Volleyball Head Coach, but he will also work with all coaches at both of the AVF's AIS programs and the current State programs at the QAS and SASI.

As has been the case in the past the focus of the scholarship will be to aid Michael's development as an elite level coach and prepare him for a position within the underpinning structure of the AVF's High Performance Program from 2008. This will therefore involve working with national program athletes in their daily training environment and accompanying AIS athletes and coaches oversees at times to gain experience of international competition as a coach.

The AVF would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the support of the ASC in providing this opportunity to Michael and the AVF. Only 16 National Sporting Organisations received scholarships for 2007, making this outcome all the more impressive.

2006 Coaching Scholarship
The Australian Volleyball Federation was successful in its application for a extension of Steve Benson's 2005 scholarship for a further year. In 2006 Steve took a more hands on appropach to his engagement with the national programs.

Steve toured Europe with the AIS Men's Volleyball squad and spent a five week period based in Adelaide working with the AIS Beach Volleyball National Centre of Excellence coaches and athletes.

A highlight of his scholarship experience was an involvement with the Australian Senior Men's team during their 2006 World Championships campaign in Japan.

Previous Coaching Scholarship Recipients
Since its inception in 1990 the following coaches have been awarded an ASC Coaching Scholarship for Volleyball or Beach Volleyball:

2009 - Andrew Schacht
2008 - Michael Nelson
2007 - Michael Nelson
2006 - Stephen Benson
2005 - Stephen Benson
2003 - Amanda Fielding
2002 - Edwina McCarron
2001 - Keiran Cranley
2000 - Sue Jenkins
1999 - Sue Jenkins
1998 - Dan Higgins
1996 - Alexis Lebedew
1995 - Paul Smith
1994 - Mark Lebedew
1994 - Amanda Coombes
1993 - Andrew Strugnell