It is undoubtedly the teachers that have the greatest impact on a students high school career, and doubly so when that teacher is also a coach of the athletic program. A truly good coach can have lasting impact in the classroom, on the field and beyond, and our local schools are very lucky to have such great coaches and mentors.

 

Five staff members from three local high schools were interviewed and given the opportunity to share their stories and memories of their time coaching for their school’s athletic programs. Between the five of them, they have more than 60 cumulative years of teaching and coaching experience and they are some of the best our region has to offer.

 

Robert Irwin teaches Career Studies and Cooperative Education at Cameron Heights, and he is coaching Nordic Skiing and Track and Field this year. His love of sports was heavily influenced by his own involvement as a student; he played hockey, baseball, tennis, golf, football and many more as a young boy, branching out to skiing and cross country among others once he reached high school. In university he officiated for a hockey league and participated in an Alpine and Nordic ski club, as well as coached for the Nancy Green Ski Team in Sudbury.

 

Irwin believes heartily that high school sports is “A great way to connect with students outside of the classroom...and it’s a great stress reliever for all involved.” He hopes for his students to be good ambassadors for their sport in everything they do, and look for opportunities to encourage others and set new goals for themselves. When they succeed in this, Irwin says, “I enjoy this much more than "just winning".” This philosophy has led to many victories for his students, both athletically and personally, and yet when asked about his favourite memory of his time coaching, Irwin first thinks of the time spent together outside of competing. “As an Alpine coach, being on the slopes after a fresh snowfall and skiing with the students in "deep powder… things like that are really unique and just as satisfying”. Irwin strives to provide memories for his students and create a positive atmosphere at each of their competitions, saying that one of his greatest goals is to “Be professional by encouraging all the athletes that are competing. Not just the athletes on my team.”. Likewise, his way of measuring success has nothing to do with victories and statistics. Irwin believes that “If students/athletes reach personal goals and are happy about their success then I feel they (and I) have achieved something”, and this philosophy has led to greater successes than he feels would have been won with a more competitive atmosphere.

 

Of course such a position comes with its challenges.  With the amount of energy he invests in his students, Irwin struggles to find the energy to balance his work as a teacher with his work as a coach, while making sure to never neglect his family life. He also personally strives to stay in shape so he can demonstrate important skills to his students; he has found that his work as a coach has bled into the rest of his life, but he assures me that he wouldn’t have it any other way!

 

Greg Gazzola has been teaching math at Bluevale Collegiate for 22 years, and is currently coaching the Girl’s Hockey team. In the past he has coached Boy’s Hockey, Football and Golf in the Bluevale athletics program. Appropriately, he was an avid hockey player in high school. He looks back on his time in high school as his main motivation for his decision to return and coach;“I valued the work my coaches did to provide me with that opportunity and one of the reasons I entered the teaching profession was the chance to give back and provide the same opportunity to others.  Over my twenty-plus years of coaching I have seen first-hand how important sports are to students for their overall development into well-rounded people. Sports teaches you so many things - responsibility, perseverance, working with others towards a common goal and how to win with dignity and lose with pride. To be able to provide these life lessons in an environment that includes high-level competition is something we sometimes take for granted. I'm happy to be able to continue the legacy of the many great WCSSAA coaches that have preceded me.”

 

As a coach, Gazzola values non-competitive traits the most; hard work, perseverance, respect for the other team, the officials, and the game itself. “I have been fortunate to coach some unbelievably talented athletes over the years, but the ones that always stick out in my memory are the ones that also outworked their opponents and never gave up.  Talent can only take you so far, but the intangibles like hard-work and resiliency are what puts you over the top.”

 

This coaching method has resulted in many victories for his students, chief among them participation in the WCSSAA Senior Football Finals four times, WCSSAA Hockey Championships in 2007, 2009 and 2017, and participation in the OFSAA tournament with a brand new Boys Hockey team. In fact, it is Gazzola who started the hockey program at Bluevale in 2002 and under his leadership it has been successful ever since. Even with all this success, Gazzola manages to stay humble and keep his focus on the part that truly matters; the success of the students he dedicates his time to. “Without a doubt the most important thing to me as a coach is to teach my student-athletes the lessons they will take with them their whole lives:  how to be a good teammate and play for the crest on your jersey rather than yourself, how to balance and prioritize their lives properly, how to persevere when things aren't going your way. Basically how to be a good person with integrity and a role model to others in our school community. I also want to teach my players not only the intricacies of the game but just a love of the game itself. My hope is that they will play the game as long as they can and hopefully they will give back in their own future.”

 

One of his top priorities is setting a good example for the students he teaches and coaches. He acknowledges the effect of his behaviour on the students and the importance his example conveys:  “I try to model what respect and integrity mean. If we set expectations for our team, then we follow up when those expectations are not met, even if it is our top player. I try to show my players that true character and integrity means showing those traits especially when the going gets tough.” This philosophy has resulted in high success for his students both on and off the ice, but Gazzola chooses to focus on another measurement for success; “Success to me is that my athletes have fun but also learn the importance of good character.  If we have team success such as a championship, then that is icing on the cake. I can't count the number of times over the years that players have made a point of saying to me that this was the most fun they've ever had and how much they learned. When I hear that, I know our coaching staff has been successful.”

 

Mr Gazzola has over twenty years of coaching experience, and his work has left a lasting impact on years of student athletes at Bluevale Collegiate.

 

Carolyn Smith is an English/Family Studies/Geography teacher at Cameron Heights Institute. She coaches Cross country running, swimming along with track and field. She chose to coach as well as teach because of her love of sports; she considers it her way of staying involved and being able to give others a chance to participate and have that high school experience. The trait she considers most important for her athletes to possess is a work ethic and willingness to work hard. Her motto is: “If everyone works hard, everyone wins.” And her students really do work hard. Some of the proudest memories Smith has of her time coaching is when the students notice their own improvements after working hard for those improvements. After their swim meets, she loves having students come up to her excited about dropping several seconds off their personal best time and be looking forward to beating that record too. She wants nothing but success for her students so to have them be so self motivated is extremely wonderful for her. As Smith says, “Teaching young people that getting involved in sports is enjoyable, is so important.” and so she makes it a goal of hers to foster that enjoyment and a sense of motivation in the students she coaches.

 

Smith makes sure to set the best of examples for her athletes by not asking them to do anything she is not already doing herself. She brings healthy foods to meets, makes sure she’s always prepared for practices, and she always owns up to her mistakes. “I model what I tell them” she says, and has noticed great results from the respect she has trusted her athletes with. Those great results have influenced Smith’s definition of success: “I measure success in terms of how well the students improve over the seasons.  If I was successful, students will perform their best times during important events. If athletes are successful, they have achieved those times, and may have gone faster than they thought they could.”

 

It is incredibly clear how much Smith cares for her students, and how hardworking she is. Mrs Smith has dedicated her talents to Cameron Heights for many years and looks forward to many more!

 

Kathy Smith is a teacher at KCI; she spends her days in class teaching Co-op and Science, and after school she coaches girl’s volleyball and track and field. As a child she was heavily involved in local sports leagues, and now as an adult she continues to play soccer, volleyball and curling, as well as multiple skiing and skating leagues. Smith says that she never thought twice about choosing coaching as a career move: “I have always loved sports so it was my way of staying involved and giving other people a chance to participate and make their high school experience more enjoyable. And I love coaching teenagers because they are a lot of fun!” She considers the building of lifelong friendships and lasting memories to be the most important part of participation in sports, adding: “Winning is fun, but just a bonus!” Her favourite memory of her time coaching cannot be condensed into one specific event, but “the end of season team parties when we had team sleepovers and ice-cream fights are definitely a highlight!”

 

Throughout the years, Smith has loved “getting to watch [her] students grow as their own person and watching them mature and grow into young adults through their high school career”, adding that getting to know them as people and building a deeper relationship with them is highly rewarding. It is a top priority for her to treat her athletes equally and with respect so they feel valued; someone who feels valued will always contribute more.

 

As Smith says, “You are a model of behaviour for them and so you must act in a way you believe would be a positive influence on the students who look up to you.” Time management is definitely Smith’s biggest challenge as a coach. Balancing her work as a coach with her life as a mother, as she says, “was a struggle at times as you often need to be in two places at once.”

 

Mrs Smith is a wonderful coach and teacher alike, and KCI athletics are all the better for having her there!

 

The last teacher I want to feature is Mrs Angela Bender, an Educational Assistant at Bluevale and the Bluevale wrestling coach. She participated in a rather unconventional sport in high school; instead of playing for her school teams she was an avid horseback rider and competed for several years. Bender never really considered wrestling an option for herself, and in fact told me the whole story about how she was instrumental in the conception of the wrestling team at Bluevale: “I initially was a staff sponsor before becoming a coach.  Bluevale did not have a team and I knew the positive effects of wrestling with my own kids. I was approached by two students at Bluevale who learned of my connection with wrestling, and I wanted to provide them with the same opportunity my kids had. I wasn't sure if I would even be allowed to be staff sponsor/coach since I was an Educational Assistant but with the support of our previous Principal - Mark Hunniford, he allowed it to become a reality. Since then, I grew to love the sport not only from a parental aspect but also from a staff perspective and a coach.  In fact, I loved it so much, I started the club team 3 years ago.”

 

Throughout her years as a coach, Bender has developed an extremely strong code of conduct with her athletes; she says that “In wrestling, kids from all sizes, shapes, backgrounds, and interests come out since it is an individual sport.  Many of the traits that I value are not always present when they join but over time, they either develop them or they quit. That being said, values I demand from my athletes are - respect (for themselves, their opponents, referees, and teammates), strong work ethic (I work them very hard and expect their best even if they aren't the best), commitment (they have to commit to themselves to develop and to their teammates to help them develop, sportsmanship (both on the mat and off the mat - they have to learn to lose in order to learn to win, and be humble in victory or respectful in defeat).”

 

Such coaching has definitely paid off for her athletes, however; Bender has many wonderful memories of her time with her wrestlers, and she shared some of the best with me.

 

“I have so many favourite memories that I couldn't even begin to describe - from when one of my wrestlers wrestled an autistic blind opponent allowing them to score on them and treating them as a true opponent, to the wrestler who nearly collapsed after a match from giving his best and whispering - "I did it Bender”, to the conversations where they open up to me, to the returning athletes who want to help out and just get back on the mat one more time, to the unexpected victories, to the shared moments with other coaches Wrestling is truly a community like no other sport which I love!”

It is clear how much Bender’s students admire her and trust her, and she strives to earn that trust and return that admiration: “I strive to be a good role model by giving to them what I expect - respect, commitment, hard work, personal investment, honesty.... and when I fall short, I apologize to them for letting them down, or try to teach them to be better than me.  I believe in them and give to them because I care about them as people and not just as students or athletes. We are all more than one aspect. I advocate for them on the mat and off and in return, they respect me for it and feel comforted or safe to talk to me.”

 

In closing, Bender talked about her love of the sport and her insight on its benefit after all these years. She speaks so fondly about the students she’s taught and how they have grown during their time at Bluevale: “They innately know ... that life doesn't come easy but anything can be overcome.  They face their fears and grow from it. They reminisce about their victories, their defeats, their lost opportunities. Every wrestler I have known, knows that wrestling is the hardest thing they have ever done but has also given them great satisfaction. They learn how to be strong - physically, mentally emotionally... and the lessons they learn on the mat carry with them for life beyond the mat.  That is why I do why I do.”

 

These five coaches have dedicated their time to their respective schools for years, and their efforts have resulted in countless achievements and victories for the students they coach. The work they do is so important and Kitchener-Waterloo is truly lucky to have so many first-rate educators in our region.