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Novel way to learn the game
22Jul08
TEAMWORK has resulted in a top score for two writers.
Netball coaches Leeanne Vernon and Gillian Lee have written Netball Dreamz: A book, a dream, a plan.
The Monash University Central state team coaches came up with the game plan to write a fictional story interwoven with a practical training manual more than three years ago.
The book, aimed at girls aged eight to 13, is about friends Sally and Nat who desperately want to make a grade 6 netball team.
The story shows the fun and challenges of sport, family relationships and peer pressure, but it also follows the girls' progress through a detailed netball training program.
Lee said readers could see the characters using the training tips to develop ball skills and attack skills.
"It is about what excites junior players," Lee said.
"But it also inspires children to read about something they love."
Lee created the manual drawing on her 25 years of experience in the sport.
The Brighton East resident is a former Australian under-21 netballer and has coached with the Monash University Central state league team, the Melbourne Phoenix national league team and the Australian and Victorian institutes of sport.
Lee praised her co-writer Vernon, who weaved the manual into a lively and engaging tale, which she said resulted in the sport being incidental to the story.
"Not on your life could we have touched a book like this by ourselves," Lee said.
Vernon, an accomplished Beaumaris author, tapped into her daughters' Maddie, 15, and Prue, 20, history as junior netballers.
"There is not much about for netballers, or for that matter girls in sport," she said.
The assistant coach said she had learnt so much while self-publishing the book.
"To look at the end product and know that every single part of it we have done is extremely gratifying," Vernon said.
Netball Dreamz: A book, a dream, a plan is available at www.netballdreamz.com or bookstores
