Northen Inland Academy of Sport inducted seven of its 2009 squads in five sports - soccer, hockey, netball, rugby union and, for the first time, lawn bowls.
Despite flooding in Tamworth, only a few people were not able to make it on the day.
There were a number of Inverell athletes involved and they all enjoyed the day.
In the netball, six girls from the Inverell area were selected for the tier one and tier two squads.
Tier one consists of girls aged between 16 and 18-years-old, while tier two is made up of netballers aged 14 and 15.
The tier one scholarship recipients are Connie McNeil from Inverell, Nikki Weribone of Ashford and Grace Kennedy from Little Plain.
In tier two Kaitlin Palmer and Molly McNeil of Inverell and Gabrielle Bierling of Mt Russel were chosen.
Lachlan McDonald from Inverell was selected for the hockey program and Inverell’s Rowan Kennedy and Terrance Gleeson from Gilgai were chosen for the football program.
Madeleine Ford from Inverell is representing the girls football team and Blaec Forsyth was selected for the lawn bowls team.
A review of the NIAS Lonestar Program means seven high level athletes have been offered a scholarship.
Inverell’s Hugh Williams will receive a grant to compensate for travel, accommodation, training and competition costs in his chosen sport of athletics.
NIAS executive officer Peter Annis-Brown said the induction had been well attended despite the floods.
"It's been good considering the difficulties with road closures etcetera.
"We had 131 athletes and I'd say more than 100 of them were here.
"So you'd say maybe 25 haven't been able to make it."
Not only was it unusual for the academy to have to dodge floodwater when inducting its new athletes, but bringing so many squads together all at once was also something new.
Never before had five sports all been inducted at once.
"From an administration point of view it's worked very, very well," Annis-Brown said.
"We've done it before individually, but from our point of view having all five squads inducted together has worked well."
Some athletes who were part of the 2008 program were returning but the vast majority were totally new to NIAS.
"They're with us for two or three years," Annis-Brown said.
"Looking at the five squads about 80 per cent of them are new.”