— Bradley King also contributed to this report
A tutor at the University of Lincoln could be honoured as ‘Educator of the Year’ at the Lincolnshire Sports Awards .
Dan Bishop, senior lecturer in Sports Science at the University of Lincoln is in line for the award, the winner of which will be announced tonight (Thursday, November 11th, 2010) after being nominated by a colleague.
Mr Bishop has encouraged many of his students to get involved in coaching and put many of his ideas into practice.
He said: “I guess the reason I was nominated was perhaps the extra stuff that I do beyond my lecturing role.
“My main interests are sports coaching, biomechanics, performance analysis and strength and conditioning, which are all quite practically applied.
“One of the main things I try to do with students is give them things that they can use. I want to give them things that they can apply, be it in a coaching setting, strength and conditioning or sports science.”
Bishop has been heavily involved in coaching the women’s basketball team at the university.
“I’m coach-educator for basketball, so I spend some of my weekends delivering those courses”, added Bishop.
“We try and encourage our students to be coaches, and there will be students who coach some of the sports teams at the university who share my experience, and it’s about helping them to become better at coaching their peers.
He said he was taken aback by the nomination: “It was a bit of a surprise. I wasn’t really expecting it. To be honest, I didn’t really know the award existed.
“I’m not sure of my chances in terms of winning the award. I know the names of the other nominees as they appear on the list, but I know nothing about them. I’m just going in with an open mind. Hopefully it’s an enjoyable evening, and if I win, that’s great.”
Bishop is not the only person directly involved with the university to be up for recognition. Student Sophie Wells and employer engagement manager Nicola Marshall have also been nominated for the ‘Young Sportswoman of the Year’ and ‘Contribution to Physical Activity’ awards respectively. The university’s ‘Healthy Campus Week’ initiative, which was promoted in the last academic year, is also up for the ‘Contribution to Physical Activity’ prize.
The awards will be presented on Thursday evening (November 11th) at the Epic Centre at the Lincolnshire Show Ground. For more information about the evening visit the Lincolnshire Sports Partnership website.