Westgate Basketball Association vice-president Sarah Simpson, has been named the sport’s administrator of the year for Victoria.
Simpson was awarded the Jack Carter memorial award by Basketball Victoria late last month in recognition of her work at Westgate, an association she joined seven years ago when her two sons began playing.
“I was very surprised because there’s a lot of great people who do a lot of great work,” Simpson said.
“Basketball is powered by volunteers.”
Simpson said her work in establishing Westgate’s junior representative teams and advocating for the construction of a new stadium, were what led to her recognition.
“Our junior representative program in the inner west has doubled in size,” she said.
“We launched our first ever Big V team (Westgate Imperials) last year, which is a youth men’s team and they actually won the grand final in their inaugural season and we’ve received approval for a Big V women’s team next year.”
Simpson also helped get support from Maribyrnong council for the concept plan of new indoor stadium at McIvor Reserve in Yarraville.
With all this coming on top of her day job in product management, Simpson, unsurprisingly, doesn’t have much time to herself.
“Easily 20 hours or more a week,” she said of how much time her administrative work takes up.
Fortunately, the rest of her family are involved too.
“My husband is a coach and my children play, we’re very much a basketball family.”
Cade Lucas
