Profiles of two Indigenous young people participating in sport and recreation that feature in the Summer 2009/10 edition of The Chronicle – Bobbie Ray and Deanni Cowen.
09 December 2009
Bobbie Ray
Nickname: Bobtail.
School life: Year 10 Aboriginal student at Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School.
Sport: Basketball.
Position: Centre/Forward.
Height: 5’11.
Jumper number: 15.
Favourite person: Her dad.
Sportsperson she most admires: Shamus Ballantyne.
Recent achievements: Being selected as 2009 Country Week Captain for her school and its basketball Country Week team.
Best qualities: Bobbie is a very good leader and role model to her fellow students. She also enjoys playing netball, although basketball is her favourite sport.
Highlight of sporting involvement: Bobbie and several other girls from the Kalgoorlie Girls Academy were recently selected to travel to America to play basketball. They travelled there with former Perth Wildcats player Ricky Grace, and only lost one game. Bobbie’s favourite part of the trip was going to Universal Studios in Los Angeles and watching an NBA game, Dallas Mavericks vs Phoenix Suns, in Dallas.
Life’s sporting ambition: To be a good role model for younger kids, to show them they can do anything they put their mind to.
Deanni Cowen
Born: 3 January 1995 (14 years old).
Motto: The person who says that it’s impossible is being beaten by the person who is doing it.
Achievements:
- Went to junior nationals 2005 at age of 10.
- First person with a disability to be accepted into an able-bodied development squad for the best swimmers in WA’s South West region.
- Won the first gold medal at the first Australian Aged Disability Championships in Canberra.
- Selected to represent Australia in the May 2009 Arafura Games, incorporating the Oceanic Paralympic Championships, and won two silver and one bronze.
- Ranked 5th in the world for the 100 m backstroke.
- Represented WA at the Youth Paralympics.
- Recieved a $1000 Healthway Smarter than Smoking Country Sport Scholarship (one of 31 athletes selected for a scholarship out of almost 200 applications from all sports, and from areas as far apart as Port Hedland to Esperance).
Role Model: Michael Phelps, because he is naturally talented and doesn’t care about what swimsuit to wear to win, but what he does and how he goes about it … and the hard work he puts in to make sure he gets where he wants to go instead of winging it. He is dedicated to his sport.
Future Directions: I want to go to the London 2012 Paralympics and win gold. Leading up to that, I would like to better my world ranking and my times and hopefully get closer or claim a world record. After my swimming career I would like to do Sports Science so I’m still connected to sport and get to travel with teams.
Australian Paralympic Youth Games: The youth games were so much fun and I bonded with everyone and met new people from different teams. I learnt a lot from coaches and my team mates about different sports – like basketball. The Wheelchair Sports WA staff helped me and a few others understand the sport better. I won two bronze and a silver, and had a gold but I got it taken away from me due to a technical difficulty in my race, but I learnt from this experience that things happen and I have to move on to become better and work on my mistakes.
