Acceleration was founded in September 2000, by Stewart & Vicki Briggs. The concept came from the United States, where Stewart studied and worked as a College Strength and Conditioning Coach. Having grown up and played sport in Australia, Stew knew first hand that American athletes recieved far more guidance, help and coaching when it came to increasing their strength, power and speed. Through his work experience and education, Stewart was certain that he could make a difference to developing athletes. Hence the reason for the name: "Acceleration" - the one facet of sport that is most needed for success in the majority of sports throughout world.
They began the company in Brisbane, with the help of people involved with Brisbane Basketball Incorporated which is based in Auchenflower. This gave them a home base in September 2000, to start work towards their vision. There have been a few key milestones a long the way...
Our first client ever was a determined young basketball player named Brendan Joyce. We started very slowly with a just a few clients in the first few months. Now, we are proud to say that we are very busy training 100's of individual clients in any given week.
In March 2001, we started work at Marist College - Ashgrove with 13 willing students. The sports master, Brendan Kiernan was the first person to say, "this is not the normal, but let's give it a go." Now we have any where up to 200 boys training with us at Marist College. Since early 2003, we have been running Performance Enhancement programs for other schools such as St. Joseph's at Gregory Terrace for many years.
In April 2001 we started consultancy work with the Brisbane Bullets - professional basketball team. We were with the Bullets for 7 seasons.
Speaking of professionals, we have trained and are training several professional swimmers who compete in both national and international swimming competitions including our most successful athlete, Libby Trickett. Many of the young Aussie Rules players who have trained with us in the past have lived their dream by becoming squad members in professional AFL clubs such as Brisbane & Hawthorn.
More importantly are the 1,000's of young developing athletes that we have helped on a day to day basis through our training at various centres and through our distance programming. We have now created the Acceleration franchise system and have opened three locations: Acceleration Brisbane Central, Acceleration Brisbane East, and Acceleration Gold Coast.
The Franchising of the Acceleration brand was made possible through the creation of another company named Sports Performance Systems Pty Ltd. In 2009 we were awarded a COMET Grant by the Australian Federal Goverment to help fund our expansion into the Online Training Program world.
Every year at our wrap-up party, we have a presentation of awards. Each winner recieves a framed certificate, a present and the name of the recipient is placed on the Acceleration Honour Board.
|
Acceleration Honour Board AWARDED ANNUALLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE |
| YEAR | COACH | ATHLETE | SCHOOL/CLUB | FRANCHISE |
| 2007 | Meagan Crabb | Libby Lenton | Marst College - Ashgrove | Gold Coast |
| 2008 | Byron Williams | Kelly Crew | St. Joseph's College - Gregory Terrace | Gold Coast |
| 2009 | Will Markwick | Chris Beath | Redland Bombers AFL | Gold Coast |
| 2010 | Byron Williams | Shane Smeltz | Golf Queensland | Gold Coast |
| 2011 | Will Markwick | Jacqui Melkshem | Golf Queensland | Brisbane Central |
ACCELERATION LIFE MEMBERS
An Acceleration Life Member is someone who has significantly contributed to Acceleration for a long period of time. This person has placed Acceleration ahead of his/her own needs for the benefit of the company and its people. They will ALWAYS be thought of as part of the Acceleration Team.
2002 - 2011 Adrian Cois
2004 - 2011 Kristopher Scaife
