The school had told the Year 11 student about the program and encouraged him to apply with the help of his teachers.
“I got pulled up to the office and I was told there’s an application process to go for the School Sports Victoria leadership program online,” he said.
“I had to write a 10-page power point on how I could make school sports a better experience for students and stuff,’’ he said.
“I kind of thought to myself I want it really badly, but if I don’t get it, I won’t get upset because there’s a million other kids that could do amazing jobs.
“I got the application sent in and I waited two or three weeks ... and Mrs (Kimberley) Tempest (Cobram Secondary principal) came into my class and had told me before I’d even seen the email, so that was awesome.
“I came home (after finding out) and I forgot to tell mum for about 30 minutes ... then she went everywhere, she called everyone.”
The program is designed so students from across Victoria can have an input on the future of school-based sport.
Tyler grew up in a sport-heavy household and has done football, boxing, athletics, swimming and karate.
“I’ve always been a real sporty kid and I just love getting involved with everything ... I’ve really tried to get myself involved in anything I could,” he said.
He’ll now be able to take his expertise in a wide variety of sports to once-a-term meetings in Melbourne with other leaders like himself.
Tyler explained he’d love to see a wider variety than the traditional sport offerings in Victorian schools to keep kids into sport.
“We’ll kind of give feedback on how things are going with school sports, upcoming events and all that, how we can get more kids involved,” he said.
“I really hope to broaden the range of sports that we can play in Victoria, because we are very ‘AFL, cricket, swimming, athletics’,” Tyler said.
“I kind of want to reach out to more sports and push for more kids to try new things and get Victoria behind more sports.
“For example we could have an athlete from a sport come to a school and talk about it, maybe run a few exercises ... just small things like that, games to get kids involved.”
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