Page 1 of 3.

Without the tireless efforts of these volunteers, it is hard to imagine how community support would survive in our country. And it’ll come as no surprise to hear that every single one of New Zealand’s high profile sports people have experienced the benefits of a volunteer coach at some point in their career.

Coaches are nominated in their region for either the student, general or lifetime coach categories and each of the category winners receive coaching apparel from SPARC as well as a supply of Watties products. The overall regional winner wins travel, accommodation and entry to SPARC’s National Coaching Convention.

The student category is open to school-aged coaches and the general category is for all other coaches in the community. The lifetime category is for people who have devoted 25 years or more to coaching.

Each region (based on the regional sports trust boundaries) hosts their own awards ceremony, which includes awarding the prizes and a guest speaker.

We spoke to Joseph Millar, a 17-year-old athletics champion, about his experience speaking at the Sport Bay of Plenty Awards.

“It was pretty neat to be invited to speak,” said Joseph. “I have a scholarship from Sport Bay of Plenty, so I need to be available to share my experiences and provide inspiration to others. I was keen to talk about my coach, Mike Corboy. If it wasn’t for him, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Joseph reckons he was more nervous getting up to speak in front of a crowd than when he’s waiting to bolt out of the blocks on the track, but we think he did such a great job, we wanted to share his speech with you.

JOSEPH’S SPEECH

When I first met Mike I was 14. I had done athletics just as fitness for about a year before then and was planning on that year being my last.

I met Mike when I went down to my sister’s training and he asked me if I wanted to join in. I was training with another coach at the time, but I didn’t see the harm in the extra activity.