Lasky earns Vic Sport award
Experienced Jewish lawn bowls player, coach, umpire and administrator Gary Lasky is proud to have been named the Gallagher Community Coach of the Year at the Victorian Sport Awards, held on June 15 at the new Centrepiece venue at Melbourne Park.
In an eventful week for the Maccabi-AJAX Lawn Bowls Inc president, Lasky attended the awards night, and then hopped on a plane to the Gold Coast, where he competed in, and umpired at, the 2022 Australian Open lawn bowls tournament.
He even presented a lecture at the tournament as part of an Australian Open coaching seminar.
Teaming up with Tasmanian Michael Andersch in the men’s pairs knockout competition, they won their first two rounds by 20-9 and 17-14, but bowed out in the third round after a nail-biting 17-18 loss.
“With all that going on, winning this award has definitely not sunk in quite yet, but I can certainly say I feel it’s quite an honour and an achievement,” Lasky told The AJN from the Gold Coast.
Last year, Lasky trained more than 50 new coaches through the AIS/Bowls Victoria club coach program, and taught more than 100 year 5 students through Bowls Australia’s Rookie Rollers program.
The award also recognised his assistance to many clubs during the entirety of the pandemic and its lockdowns, offering advice about match preparation, and technical training, through Zoom seminars and PowerPoint presentations. Elements of those programs he led are now being considered by Bowls Australia to run nationwide next year.
Lasky described that work as “very rewarding”, and said the idea for it came during the Melbourne lockdowns in 2020.
“I saw there was a great opportunity to use Zoom, to get some of Australia’s best lawn bowls coaches together virtually, to share their knowledge with others.”
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