Westport High student Simone Smith has received an award for Outstanding Achievement in Sport at the fifth annual NSW Schools’ Nanga Mai Awards held in Sydney.
Only two students in NSW received this award.
Simone is known as an exceptional young sportswoman who has achieved outstanding success, particularly in the sports of touch football and rugby union.
In 2010, Simone was selected:
• As a member of the mixed Under 21s Indigenous Australian Touch Football team that played New Zealand
• As a member of the 2010 Australian Indigenous Women’s Open Touch Football team that toured New Zealand, playing the host and other Pacific Island Nations
• As a member of the Australian Under 18s Girls’ Touch Football team that will tour Canberra in 2011-04-09 to join the mixed Under 18s NSW Touch Football Schools’ team to play in the Battle of the States against Queensland
• To be part of the NSW Country Mavericks Elite 8 Touch Football team to play in the 2011 National Touch League team in Port Macquarie.
In 2010, Simone:
• Represented her school as a member of the NSW Combined High Schools Open Girls’ Touch Football team, which won the Girls’ Under 18 division at the National Youth Championships
• Was scouted as a talented Rugby Union player and has the chance to be selected in the Australian Rugby 7s Women’s team to play in the Olympics in 2014.
Her other recent sporting achievements include:
• Being a member of the North Coast Girls’ winning Athletics 4×100 Relay Team
• Representing her high school for the past four years in the North Coast Open and Under 15s Touch Football Teams — 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010
• Being the North Coast Region’s representative for Athletics, Rugby Union and Touch Football
• Playing in the Port City Breakers Girls’ League Tag Team which won the competition in both 2009 and 2010
• From 2004 to the present: representing  Lower North Coast and North Coast Regions in Basketball, Cricket, Netball, Swimming and
Soccer.
Simone has won many awards over the years and those most recently awarded include:
• North Coast Sporting Blue for outstanding performances in Touch Football during 2010
• The Women’s League Tag “Most Valuable Player” Award for 2010
• Westport High School’s 2010 Rugby Union Player of the Year trophy
• The Senior Girls’ Athletic Champion for Westport High School
• The Players’ Player Award for 2010 at the State Football Championships as a member of the North Coast Girls’ Open Touch Football team.
Simone is currently in the NSW State of Origin Touch Football Under 20s squad.
The awards this year attracted Evonne Goolagong Cawley as keynote speaker.
The department’s deputy director-general, schools, Greg Prior said, “The students being honoured are members of a generation of young Aboriginal people that will have a major impact on the expectations and experiences of following generations.”
