Jenny Williams (born 11 January 1957) is an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n sports psychologist and athlete who represented

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

in six sports, namely

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

indoor lacrosse Box lacrosse, also known as boxla, box, or indoor lacrosse, is an indoor version of lacrosse played mostly in North America. The game originated in Canada in the 1930s, where it is more popular than field lacrosse. Lacrosse is Canada's official ...

touch In physiology, the somatosensory system is the network of neural structures in the brain and body that produce the perception of touch (haptic perception), as well as temperature (thermoception), body position (proprioception), and pain. It is ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

and

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

Lacrosse

Williams represented Australia in lacrosse and was a member of the 1986 World Champion Gold Medal team. She also captained Australia from 1989 to 1992 winning a bronze medal in the 1989 World Cup. She coached the Australian team to a world silver medal in 1997 in Tokyo, Japan. Notably, early in her career she was a member of the Australian team that won its first ever game against the United States in 1981 – the first recorded loss for the US.Daly, John A., ''Against the odds : a pictorial history of 100 years of South Australian women in sport and recreation'', Libraries Australia ID: 11285629 Williams also captained or co-captained South Australia to 12 National Championships in lacrosse (11 consecutive wins) and was named in the National Championship team in each of these years. She also received the player of the Nationals Award in 1986 earning best a field votes in every game.

Touch

Williams captained-coached the College Touch Team who won four League titles and she won the Association Best and Fairest in both the Women's and Mixed Competitions. She was selected in the Australian squad in 1984 and Captained SA from 1982 to 1985. She was also involved as a coach where she co-coached the State U/16 to 3rd place in a Nationals.

Cricket

Williams represented South Australia in cricket as wicketkeeper from 1978 to 1982 winning the National Championships in 1981 and being selected as Wicketkeeper of the tournament that year.

Soccer

Williams played as either wing or centre forward for College and South Australia (1980–1982) in soccer. ACAE (College) won the League Championship and the Ampol Cup twice.

Australian Rules Football

Williams captained the first South Australian women's team. In 2003, Williams was awarded the AFL Football Woman of the Year award for her contribution to the sport. She has subsequently developed a modified version of the game "Nines". She also worked in the media as a writer of football articles in the South Australian paper ''The News''.

Professional career

Williams was originally a physical education teacher. Throughout her sporting career she has coached junior teams ranging from all of her chosen sports and others such as tennis, basketball and volleyball. She was Head of Department and Sportsmistress at Immanuel College for 10 years and a physical education teacher at Sacred Heart College. In 1989 and 1990, Williams was Acting Women's Advisor to the Minister of Recreation and Sport. In 2004, Williams co-authored a children's book with her brother, AFL Coach Mark Williams, that went to the top of the best seller list in South Australia. She has also written a Heart Rate Monitor for students and has had research published in a variety of journals ranging from the ''

British Journal of Psychology The ''British Journal of Psychology'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed psychology journal. It was established in 1904 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the British Psychological Society. The editor-in-chief is Stefan R. Schweinberger ( ...

'' through to Indigenous Council reports. She has also been involved in the

Premier's Reading Challenge The Premier's Reading Challenge is a literacy initiative developed by Australian state governments. It is set not as a competitive event, but rather as an individual challenge to each student, as well as to promote a love of reading books. The chall ...

, a South Australian Government initiative for children's literacy. In 2010, Williams was employed by

Port Adelaide Football Club Port Adelaide Football Club is a professional Australian rules football club based in Alberton, South Australia, Alberton, South Australia. The club's senior men's team plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), where they are nicknamed ...

as a team psychologist. In 2020, Williams was hired by Adelaide United Football Club as a sports psychologist.

Personal life

Jenny Williams is the daughter of Australian Rules footballer

Fos Williams Foster Neil "Fos" Williams AM (21 February 1922 – 1 September 2001) was a leading Australian rules footballer who played for and coached the Port Adelaide and West Adelaide Football Clubs and coached South Adelaide in the South Australian ...

, and the sister of

Mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

and Stephen Williams. Jenny said of her father "Growing up with a father who was a coach you learned to think about how you could take a sport forward, and I suppose I developed a great imagination for what could be achieved in sport." She was inducted into the South Australian Sport Hall of Fame in October 2013. In 2022, she was awarded a

Medal of the Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

(OAM) for her services to women’s sport.

References

External links

''The Age''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Jenny 1957 births Living people Australian lacrosse players Sportswomen from South Australia Sportspeople from Adelaide

Jenny Jenny may refer to: * Jenny (given name), a popular feminine name and list of real and fictional people * Jenny (surname), a family name Animals * Jenny (donkey), a female donkey * Jenny (gorilla), the oldest gorilla in captivity at the time of ...

Australian rules footballers from South Australia Australian women cricketers Australian women's soccer players Women's association football players not categorized by position Australian psychologists