The Williamstown Football Club is pleased to announce an exciting new initiative for Season 2011 and beyond. Aptly named after one of the club’s biggest success stories, the “Liam Picken Academy” is a high quality personal development program that provides support to 1st and 2nd year players aged between 18-21. Young footballers with dreams of being drafted onto an AFL list or aspiring to be involved with an elite VFL Club will be given every opportunity to realise their full football potential. Along with an intense football focus, the program will also concentrate on developing the personal attributes of participants to enhance their ability to build an alternative career beyond football.
The Liam Picken Academy will take a holistic approach to development with players undergoing a Career Oriented Participation induction program with all players graduating with a Certificate 3 in Sport & Recreation. This is the same induction program that all 17 AFL clubs undertake with their first year players. With an emphasis on life and professional development, components of the induction program include financial advice, goal setting, resume writing, time management, cooking lessons and health and wellbeing.
The Club has elected to go through InFront Sports, who have vast AFL industry experience having worked with the AFL Player’s Association and the AFL Coaches Association. InFront Sports will be co-ordinating the Certificate 3 in Sport & Recreation and have created a development program that provides fantastic professional development opportunities for our players.
The Club is very excited about the recent appointments of Justin Plapp and Jeremy Barnard who will both be heavily involved in the Development Academy. We are thrilled to recruit coaches such as Justin Plapp and Jeremy Barnard who have such a strong background in the Development of players and are excited by the challenge of taking our playing list to the next level, both individually and collectively.
The Williamstown Football Club is excited about witnessing our players flourish within the Liam Picken Academy. The Club thanks Liam Picken for allowing us to associate his name with our Development Academy. We look forward to many more players following the pathway that Liam Picken endured in making the transition from TAC Cup, VFL Reserves, VFL Seniors and then onto Senior AFL football.
Please see the attached file for details of the program.
For more information please contact Chris Dixon (Football Manager) on 9391 0309 or cdixon@westernjets.asn.au as there will be a photo opportunity next week when Liam Picken returns from the Western Bulldogs preseason camp in New Zealand.