Going to such a small high school like St. David always made us the underdog. But that tough, gritty, family mentality encompassed the entire school as well as previous generations of Celtics. I'd like to think I learned this attitude which has carried me into post-secondary athletics from my old head coach and personal friend Tyson Lavigne.

Tyson was a former Celtics basketball all-star who played alongside Bucknell Alumni and former professional basketball player Bryson Johnson. But from what I gathered through conversation with Wally Gangl (Tyson’s former coach), Tyson was never the most skilled player on the court, but was always the hardest worker and was also a very smart basketball player. This focus on hard work as well as efficient, smart basketball is what took our underdog Celtics team to the 2017 OFSAA tournament. 

Tyson started coaching me when I was in the 11th grade at St. David. He stepped into our head coach position half way through our season and made an immediate, noticeable impact on our teams play. That’s when I began to learn what motivated Tyson. He didn’t care about becoming a professional coach (although im sure he would love to do that one day). The thing he wanted most in the world was to perfect his knowledge of the game and to share it with others. Now this process of becoming an efficient offensive machine combined with tough and determined defense didn’t come immediately to us Celtics. But to coin Tyson’s favourite phrase “trust the process”, and so we did. By my fifth year we had become an elite high school basketball team in our region. Tyson was able to illustrate to our players the roles he expected of them and to motivate them to embody those roles. From the lock down defense and shooting ability of Jahnei Powell, the shot blocking and rebounding of Justin Henderson and Matt Radocchia, and the sharpshooting, playmaking abilities of Brent “Lassey” Lasovich, we were a working machine where each part knew their function. 

We reached the District 8 championship losing to St. Benedict who had a roster with Zubair Seyed (D8 MVP, Ryerson Rams Men's Bball), Justin Malnerich and Evan Rodenburg (University of Waterloo Men's Bball) and Devonte Douse (Fanshaw Falcons Men's Bball) and we Celtics considered making the final a great achievement, but we didn’t stop there. With the leadership of Tyson Lavigne, we reached the CWOSSA championships after coming back from a 30 point deficit in the semi-finals where Brent and I scored 48 of our teams 52 points to win the game. We ended up losing in the CWOSSA final, however we still achieved the school's third ever OFSAA appearance in senior boys basketball history (in which Tyson was a member of both of those prior teams). We were eliminated after three games in OFSAA, however, receiving that  OFSAA banner meant the world to me. Brent and I often reminisce about what it was like to lead that team, and to play for Tyson. We both concur that those memories are some of the best ones of our lives.

To conclude my athlete story, I have to thank Tyson and all of my former teammates for grinding with me every day to reach the goals we set to achieve. I also have to say that Tyson Lavigne is to date the best coach I have ever played for and I promise the readers of this, he will be a successful U-Sports head coach one day because of his love for the game of basketball and because of his tireless effort towards perfecting the game.

Mason Cumming - January 2017