VU human movement and exercise science student, Easton Wood, was the winner of the prestigious Charles Sutton Medal at last night’s Western Bulldogs medal presentation.
Easton picked up 268 votes, ahead of captain Bob Murphy (229) and Marcus Bontempelli (226) to receive the club’s prized Best and Fairest Award. A big winner on the night, Easton was also the recipient of the John Van Groningen Domestique Award, voted by the players and awarded for placing the team above the individual on-field. He was also chosen by the Western Bulldogs to receive the inaugural Victoria University Education Award.
Victoria University Education Award
This new award reinforces the importance of players continuing their education to prepare for a life after football and is given to a current AFL-listed Western Bulldogs player who:
- is studying at a tertiary level at any university
- has achieved excellent results in their study
- is performing at a consistently high level on the field, and
- is making a positive contribution to the Western Bulldogs Club.
“We are absolutely committed to helping our players develop and we feel education is a critical component of that,” said Bulldogs CEO, Dave Stevenson.
“As an elite-athlete-friendly university, Victoria University has a strong commitment to the athletes to prepare for a career after sport,” said VU’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter Dawkins. “Given our strong partnership with the Western Bulldogs, we are keen to encourage players and staff of the Bulldogs to pursue further study.”
VU students win big
Several VU students took out awards, making it an outstanding end to a fruitful season in the VU Bulldogs partnership. 2015 has notably seen an escalation of our collaborative research program.
Overseen by ISEAL and led by the joint appointment of two sports scientists there are now more 20 students working on research projects within the Bulldogs focussing on topics such as Talent Selection, Development and Coaching Practice, and Performance Analytics.
Mitch Wallis, VU business student, took out the Top Dogs George Shaw Award for the best player across the season as voted by the Top Dogs members. Mitch also won the Bruce Wilkinson Award for the AFL player deemed most outstanding by the club’s trainers.
VU PhD student, Mat Inness, won the Ingrid McDonald Award for the football staff member who has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Mat was recently promoted to the role of Western Bulldogs Physical Performance Manager from his previous position as High Performance Coach.
