Kevin Betts

Kevin Francis Betts, OAM (13 August 1926 – 4 May 1990) was a sports administrator known for his work in the Paralympic movement in Australia and his founding work related to wheelchair sports in New South Wales.

Born 13 August 1926, in the Sydney suburb of Naremburn, he was one of ten children. He died of cancer on 4 May 1990 after a career of more than thirty years dedicated to the welfare of people with spinal cord injuries.

Betts' career began at the Bjelke Peterson school in Sydney where he trained as a remedial gymnast until a position became available at Mount Wilga rehabilitation hospital in the Sydney suburb of Hornsby. Betts learned of the revolutionary work of Sir Ludwig Guttmann working with senior physiotherapist, Eileen Perrottet, at the hospital's 'day attendance and residential centre', the largest rehabilitation centre in Australia where paraplegic patients were being assisted by the hospital's rehabilitation programs.

From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, Betts organised sporting activities for people with spinal cord injuries, at army drill halls at Chatswood then at Homebush suburbs of Sydney, and later at the Lidcombe hospital's old cafeteria which was used until the construction of the Kevin Betts stadium, at Mount Druitt in 1986. Betts was a member of the planning team, where meetings were held to develop Wheelchair Sport in New South Wales. After refurbishment in 2012, the stadium, the first of its kind in the Southern hemisphere, reopened as a world class facility.

He visited hospitals demonstrating sporting opportunities for people with a disability and trained and managed Australia's first wheelchair team that demonstrated sporting events at Commonwealth Games. In 1968, Betts was employed by the Department of Industrial Relations, conducting programs in the prevention of industry-related back problems. Appointed to the council of management of the Paraplegic and quadriplegic Association of New South Wales, Betts was Director of the Sports Sub Committee 1972 to 1973, attending most meetings from 1972 to 1984. On 8 June 1983, Betts and Dr John Grant were nominated to sit on the panel for classifying athletes. In 1991, classification and educational clinics were held at the Kevin Betts Symposium on Functional Classification, according to Grant, then President of the International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation.

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