30 Years of Australian Sports Camps

As ASC celebrates 30 years in 2013, we take a look back at our history…

Australian Sports Camps began in 1983 as the creation of former Victorian shield wicketkeeper, Geoff Miles. The company was founded with the aim of providing first class sports coaching in a variety of sports around Australia, and was the first company set up in Australia specifically to conduct sports coaching on a full time basis. Our first ever camp was an Aussie Rules football coaching camp, at Marcellin College in Melbourne. Former Fitzroy great, Garry Wilson — who won 5 best and fairest awards for the Lions, and was named vice-captain in Fitzroy’s Team of the Century — was in charge of the coaching program. Since that first camp 30 years ago, ASC have run camps in sports including cricket, football, soccer, netball, basketball, tennis, hockey, softball, rugby union and rugby league right across Australia, and even ventured to Dubai in 2004 to run a cricket coaching clinic and corporate 2020 cricket event for Emirates Airlines. This summer we are excited to be running a squash camp for the first time ever. Camps such as the Kevin Sheedy Football Camp and the Justin Langer Cricket Camp have become established as regular events on the sporting calendar for many youngsters around the country, whilst ASC have expanded in 2013 to run camps not just in summer and winter, but in all school holiday periods.

The traditional format of our camp programs is three days coaching for players of all standards aged 6 to 17, who are coached by experienced coaches and leading players in the sport. The coaches who have attended our camps represent the best players and coaches in the world of sport: Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne, Ian Botham and Dennis Lillee in cricket; Kevin Sheedy and Denis Pagan in AFL; Brian Goorjian in Basketball; Joyce Brown in Netball; Mark Knowles in Hockey; Brad Fittler in Rugby League; Ange Postecoglou in soccer; Peter McNamara in Tennis. During our 30 years, some future stars have attended our camps as junior players, such as James Hird in AFL football, Darren Lehmann and Ed Cowan in cricket, and Mark Philippoussis in tennis — who have gone on to represent their sport or country at the highest level — whilst the many thousands of others who attend are encouraged to improve their skills and then be better able to enjoy playing their chosen sport. And it’s not just those camp participants who go on to succeed that stand out. We fondly remember the lad who used to do a paper round yearly to save up the money to attend the Kevin Sheedy Football Camp. He saved up to attend the camp 6 years in a row, before we gave him a free place to attend for the last 2 years as a reward for his hard work and enthusiasm. There was also a 15 year old travelling American student who attended a cricket camp having never played before, and quickly became a cricket-lover who certainly played the cross bat shots well. In the last decade we have seen some who previously attended as children gain their coaching qualifications and join our coaching panels. We also now have second-generations of children attending the camps, following in the footsteps of their parents In all, more than 150,000 junior players have attended our camps since 1983. We thank all who have been a part of the Australian Sports Camps journey over the last 30 years, and look forward to providing excellent sports coaching for many years to come.