School teachers in rugby league heartland in Dalby and Townsville have won AFL Queensland’s School Ambassador of the Year awards.
Monday, 22 August, 2011
School teachers in rugby league heartland in Dalby and Townsville have won AFL Queensland’s School Ambassador of the Year awards.
Tim Lincoln (pictured back right), from Our Lady of the South Cross College in Dalby, has won the primary schools category, while Nick Clarry, from Kirwan State High School in Townsville, has taken out the secondary schools award.
They were chosen from a pool of more than 470 teachers, principals and other staff members who volunteer as AFL School Ambassadors across Queensland, donating generous amounts of their time to promote the code in their school.
This is the second year of the award, with the two winners each to receive a trip for two to the first week of the AFL Finals series in Melbourne, including flights, accommodation and tickets to a finals match and an exclusive function.
Lincoln has been recognised for a huge contribution in breaking down an historically strong rugby league culture in western Queensland.
He has run the Dalby AFL Primary School Competition for five years now and has 12 teams from his school alone participating in the competition, where he coordinates students from the high school sector of OLSSC to coach and umpire.
He enters teams in the Jonathan Brown Cup (Secondary) and Carol Berry and Gold Coast Suns Cups (Primary), taking out the Darling Downs leg for all three this year.
Significantly, too, and largely at his instigation, NAB AFL Auskick was introduced for the first time in Dalby in 2011, run by the school and the local AFL club.
Lincoln also drove the establishment of an AFL field at the school, sourcing posts that have gone up on an oval which now hosts interschool matches.
It’s been a similar story for Clarry in Townsville, where Kirwan SHS is one of largest schools in Queensland, with strong ties to the North Queensland Cowboys NRL team.
AFL Queensland has been trying for years to have the code played at Kirwan without any luck, but Clarry, a maths teacher with a strong AFL passion, changed all that this year.
He organised for the lower secondary school to run ‘Sport Ed’ for the first time and already has it booked in for next year.
He entered teams in the Northern States Cup, the inaugural North Queensland Secondary Schools competition, and Open Girls School competition for the first time ever in each case.
Also, he has driven communication with the local club, achieving a great transition rate of Kirwan students sampling AFL at club level for the first time.
And he has established AFL in the curriculum for Senior Secondary in 2012, which will involve 30-40 students initially.
Also, AFLQ has announced a list of regional winners who were finalists in the AFLSA of the Year competition. They were:-
PRIMARY
Brett Hull (Annandale SS)
David Maddock-Jones (Alligator Creek SS)
Nigel Burgess (Algester SS)
Kurt Gislingham (Gaven SS)
Mark Lester (Suncoast Christian College)
Nigel Lewis (Stafford SS)
Teale Weller (Redland Bay SS)
Tim Lincoln (Our Lady of the Southern Cross College) – WINNER
SECONDARY
Leanne Kratzmann (St Ursula’s College)
Kiah Lanham (Pioneer SHS)
Marty Webber (Centenary SHS)
Peter Sykes (Benowa SHS)
Justin Pritchett (Mountain Creek SHS)
Jason Mancktelow (Mueller College)
Andrew Walsh (Mt Gravatt SHS)
Nick Clarry (Kirwan SHS) – WINNER
