When SKA set out to create educational products that would be relevant to the upper levels of sport management and coaching, it pursued some of the finest, most forward-thinking academic and industry identities available.

The faculty that ultimately collaborated on the inaugural executive management and elite coaching courses was a rare collective of representatives from more than 10 universities and institutes around Australia. They were joined by luminaries of sport including, among others: CEO of the International Cricket Council, Mal Speed; CEO of the AFL, Andrew Demetriou; Australian Cricket coach John Buchanan; and Olympic gold medal-winning coaches, Ric Charlesworth, Don Talbot and Istvan Gorgenyi.

Academic Programme Manager, Peter Sinclair, who identifies and recruits presenters for the courses, says that SKA aims to stand out for its ability to meet the high-level development ambitions of sport's elite administrators and coaches.

Said Sinclair, "One of the important achievements of our programmes is the delivery of academic case studies which are complemented by presentations from the subjects of those studies."

An initial example Sinclair said was an SKA case study of AFL sponsorship, which was followed by a presentation from its CEO, Andrew Demetriou. Course participants were able to assess what was revealed in Demetriou’s lecture in light of having worked through the case study.

Future elite coaching and management courses will continue to offer ground-breaking case studies and emphasise this collaboration between academia and the sport industry.

New courses in 2006 include - International Sport Facility Management in Melbourne in March, Major Event Management and High Performance Management.