University of Canberra: Students and staff connected by UC7s professional sports program
The University of Canberra continues to deliver on targets within its Sport Strategy, by connecting students and staff to high performance athletes and teams.
Health, performance, and research experts have been working with the UC Women’s Rugby 7s program throughout the 2022 Uni7s season, to help the team perform to the best of their ability.
Lecturer in the Faculty of Health, Sport and Exercise Science and UCRISE PhD candidate, Billy Mason, joined the 7s program this year as the Athletic Performance Lead.
It’s the first time the Faculty of Health has been involved in this type of collaboration, as the University strives to be Australia’s leader for women in sport and a top three sports university in Australia.
“My involvement with 7s came through a relationship with the University, as it’s a UC supported team,” Mr Mason said.
“I had a chat with the coach about how we could better align what we do in the Faculty of Health with some of the sporting teams we have on campus. It fits well given our area of expertise.”
Mr Mason develops training programs and monitors performance to see how the athletes are tracking and if there’s anything that needs to be modified, to help them perform as well as they can.
“We have a wealth of expertise in our discipline, so it is great to be able to bring that across and apply it to the 7s program as part of the performance team.” he said.
“Conversely, it also helps our students through opportunities for placement and by using actual performance data in our teaching.”
Head Physiotherapist Dominic Trinder joined the program as a sports trainer three years ago when he was still studying at the University.
“To have the opportunity to grow and develop my skills in a practical setting, has been great,” he says.
“I definitely learnt a lot of the skills in the classroom and with all my tutors but being able to apply all of it in a real-world setting was probably the best thing for me as a physiotherapist.”
He graduated at the beginning of the year and now balances full time work alongside morning and evening sessions with the team.
“I do full time clinical work during the day at Elite Rehab and Sports Physio,” Mr Trinder said.
“I come here to UC7s for injury clinic on a Monday, field sessions on a Tuesday and Thursday, gym sessions on Wednesdays, and then games on the weekend.”
The University offers 15 sport-related courses – nine undergraduate, six postgraduateand nine majors. Through the Sport Strategy, the University aims to provide students with Work Integrated Learning experiences in sporting organisations on campus.
Through this experience, students are given an employment-seeking edge, as proven by Mr Trinder.
“If it was easy, everyone would do it, so there is a little bit of sacrifice to it but it’s worth it in the long run because the amount of confidence I gained from working within these teams and being afforded these opportunities from UC and the programs attached to it, has been invaluable.”