Olympic coach opens up about lack of funding & unfair administration

•  Trevor Ward coach of Gold Medallist Arisa Trew
•  "Arisa is a freak talent" 
• "Arisa was told she wasn't old enough and wasn't good enough. This is from people who are administrators"
• "She didn't get any funding."
• "Arisa is the first girl that ever did a 720, and then did a 900 after 4 days... it took Tony Hawke 10 years."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You've got a middleist on your hands.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Yeah, it's pretty amazing experience. That was something that I'll
never forget. And like, Arissa's a freak, freak talent. You know,
when I first met her, she was a little girl
and her two two coming up to our old place
in Arundel where I met you.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
And then and then all of a sudden, she just
became this freak.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And I told her parents, hey, you should stop her
from going to normal school and come to our school.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
And then I think this is interesting, and it happens
to a lot of athletes no funding until now, Like,
what's that story about.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
You know, Arissa was told she wasn't old enough to
be in the Olympics or in the team, and she
probably wasn't good enough. And you know these are by
people that are administrators. They don't know anything to do
with it. And I've been dealing with, you know, our sporting
body for twenty five years and you know, they just
kind of said, nah, she's not good enough.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
And she didn't really get any funding.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I think more of the funding went to the administrators
to go on holiday. But they figure out, they always
figure out how to make themselves look good in the
light of things, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, yeah, so and now we're talking about Vert that
that's her main event and that could be in the
next games.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, hopefully Vert is Like they've talked about a few sports,
potentially scooter riding because they can double up on the
use of the park, right, But everyone's pushing for Vert
vertz the elitist thing, like because park skating wasn't really
a discipline. They brought it out in about two thousand
and eight because they wanted to, like girls weren't as
good as vert was very elitist, yes, so they're like, oh,

(01:33):
the girls won't get good, but they would have had
twelve years from twenty and eight to twenty twenty to
get good, but they came up with park skating, and
that's kind of made it a little bit. Yeah, it
kind of made vert skating go down. But now like
Ariss is the best in the world, like she does
she's the first girl that ever did a seven twenty
and then she did a nine hundred, and she did

(01:53):
a nine hundred in what was it eighty eight, goes
like it took her.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Four days to do it. It took Tony Hawk ten
years so.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Now does Tony know, does he know that she's done
the nine hundred and all that.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Yeah, yeah, Tony's put it on his Instagram. He knows.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
He tried to buy her board that she did the
nine hundred on because he's got his one and he
wanted to put hers next to it. And he's like,
I'll make you a sizable donation if you if I
buy it.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
And he's got a lot of money, you know, Tony.
But she's kept it.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
She kept the board.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Yeah, we've still got it all sitting there. So she
really doesn't care about that stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
She just would leave the board there and go and.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Do something else. But I'm like, we're always picking a
mark and holding onto.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's got to care for it. She's fourteen years.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, it's all about her having fun, you know. Like
we've done documentaries. There's one coming out on Netflix.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
On her and my daughter. Yeah, so that was like
a road to X game.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
So my daughter, Jada and Arissa are like best friends,
and they did one on Arissa and then they Jada
and her get along and they changed the whole story
and it's Reese Witherspoon that has this and she loves
the girls and so yeah, but I had to protect
them from the documentary makers because they just walk in
the house and I'd be like, oh no, no, you're out,
You're not in here untill nine o'clock. And then they'd

(03:07):
go directly to the kids and I'm like, you can't.
You've got to come and talk to me, and then
I'll pitch it to the kids and then we'll come
up with an idea to.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Do it ourselves.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
So it feels right to them, because if they're kids,
you know what I mean, you can't just come in
and throw them into even at the radio station.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
It's got to be done on their terms. Yeah, you're
doing a great job.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
She's a great kid, and yeah, look after her because
I think she's going to be probably one of the
biggest stars Australia's ever seen.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
That's right. And level up is where you're doing all
your good work, mates, So make sure you look up,
Trevor Ward. Level up and if your kids are leaning
in that direction, it's the perfect place.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
To go, come on down. Thanks so much, guys, Thank
you