Friday September 7 saw Gympie South State School come alive as they got involved in a Sport & Rec Qld ‘Deadly Sports Day Program’ featuring all kinds of sports including AFL, Softball, Rugby League, Netball, Cricket, Soccer and traditional Indigenous games.

Some 220 students from year 4 to 7 over the course of five hours participated in the day, undertaking 5 x 30 minute sessions of activity and fun at each sports station.

The day officially started with a welcome to country and this ‘Deadly Sports Day’ by Gympie Indigenous Elder – Aunty Lillian Burke.

‘Deadly’ is a term that originated from the Aboriginal communities of the east coast, it means ‘cool’ or ‘real good’. So it was certainly a word for the day.

Involved in the day were athletes from the listed sports, Netball was supported by Brisbane Firebirds Chelsea Pitman and Ameiliaranne Wells, Kelly McKellar (Softball), Darren Smith (Rugby League), Joe Marsh (Cricket), Sam Saif (Soccer) and traditional Indigenous games with Gordon Browning.

For the deadliest of sports, AFL we had Brisbane Lions Champion Darryl White with us. And in his true style he was brilliant – a real pleasure to work with. Whitey’s engagement with the kids was fantastic, a great ambassador for our game. So a huge thanks to Darryl.

During the course of the day and quite to Menti and PT’s amusement was the fact that we were referred to (in the company we kept) as athletes by event organiser and Sport & Rec North Coast Indigenous Advisor Derek Collins, this not once but many times J.

Helping us out at our ‘deadly’ AFL station were three young Gympie Cats – Reimarley O’Donoghue, Daniel Stubbs and Tristan Carey. It was fantastic to engage these boys on the day to help facilitate our program and they were a credit to the game and themselves in how they went about things and got heavily involved. So we sent out the Gympie Cats AFL club message where ever possible.

The school’s Principal Doug Wilson was over the moon in having such an event on his school’s grounds, “so many sports stars here on the one day engaging our students in the value of healthy living.”

It was a fantastic day of community engagement out at Gympie South State School with Darryl White and a few of the young Catters, it was real ‘deadly’.