Tuesday's With Dave

Talk. Heal. Thrive. “I love when people that have been through hell walk out of the flames carrying buckets of water for those still consumed by the fire.” – Stephanie Sparkles Hello Olympia friends, Thank you, Chris, for your support and encouragement in my dream to make a major dent in the stigma surrounding mental illness…the stigma that stops too many people from reaching out for help. As I move forward into this uncharted territory of writing my book, it is wonderful having a friend, encourager and ally like Chris who has already travelled down this book writing road ahead of me. Twice! Thank you for believing in me, Brother! I also want to give a huge Olympia swoosh to Greg Rogers for believing in my message and getting me started on my professional speaking engagements back in 2012. Swooooosh! Thank you, Greg. In the inspirational words of Dave Grace, I’m “taking the bat off my shoulder” and taking the risk to let you peer inside my brain for a little while. It’s scary to put th...

 This week's blog is actually a two-parter. After reading and writing about Coach Don Ryan in Mike Hickeys' great book, When Basketball  Was a Game   I  again got to thinking about the people we get to meet along our journey, and how they enrich our lives. This week I tell about another great person I have been fortunate to meet, learn from, and become friends with, on my journey. To introduce this Olympian I include one of the most iconic pictures that captures the essence of Olympia and an excerpt from chapter 1 of A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp.  This picture is worth a thousand words of life at Olympia Sports Camp. It has a world class athlete and entertainer Harlem Globetrotter Curly Neal, hanging out and having fun with a bunch of teen or 20-something counsellors on a beautiful sunny day in Muskoka. Dave Grace brought Curly up to wow and motivate the campers and staff alike, but this picture shows the humanity of having a bl...

Basketball is a Game... a Tool for Growth When writing A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp I was motivated to capture the 50 year history of the camp but more so I wanted to explore the life and teachings of Dave Grace and understand what it took for him to inspire so many, for so long.... I now find myself exploring the journey of other heroes. Some are written about in this blog, others come from further reading.   Let me introduce you to Mike Hickey. First a brief history of one the quality people I got to meet on my journey. Mike hails from Hempstead, New Jersey and attended and played basketball at Sir George Williams University in Montreal in 1971-73. When Sir George Williams and Loyola College merged to form Concordia University in 1974, Mike became the head coach of the Stingers Men's basketball team at only 24 years of age. In 1975 he took over the Women's program and coached the team till 1985. He then moved to Toronto to take over the ...

 The Making of a World Champion This 200th blog entry for Tuesdays With Dave was an idea I got in June after the Oklahoma City Thunder won the NBA Championship, and have been chasing down ever since. This week's blog, looks at the journey  of Olympia Sports Camp camper, High school phenom at Sacred Heart in Ottawa, two-sport athlete at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, professional basketball player in Europe and Canada's CEBL ( Canadian Elite Basketball League) and dedicated and empathetic personal trainer  Sean Stoqua. Some quotes for this blog are taken from my first book: Can't Miss: The Kevin Pangos Story. Sean's impactful journey to World Champion is inspiring in terms of the people he has had in his inner circle virtually from birth, and the people he was fortunate to meet along his journey, but also the trials and injuries that may have played a huge role in where he is today. Empathetic ? He's been there. The Olympia Sports Camp connection  (that...

 Happy 2026 This edition of the blog is entry #199. I think its cool that a whimsical idea that came about in the office of Dave Grace would end up with so many stories taken from, or offshoots from A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp. Turns out there are a lot of heroes out there with great stories, and people who like to read those stories. I'm looking toward entry 200 and beyond.  In the process of writing the book I think Dave and I met four or five times. Those included a session in a glassed-in room in Dave's cabin overlooking his beloved OxBow Lake. We had epic-length discussions about the dreams of a high school teacher and the realities of running a Sports camp for 50 years. Another time we met at the Olympia Offices in Toronto, where I had a one on one, and interactive, Dave Talk for over three hours. It was an astounding opportunity to spend quality time with such a man. As I got up to leave I looked at him and said " You know Tues...

 Girls Got Game Chapter 4 of A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp is entitled Meet The Mentors. The idea of the chapter was to analyze the journeys of 12 Olympia coaches whose journey depicts one of the 12 steps of the Hero's Journey described by Jospeh Campbell in his philosophy. What came out of this analysis is that teaching and learning become multi-generational through the process of mentoring. Teachers and coaches teach skills, for sure, but more so they teach or model life skills and a sense of being a good competitor and a good person, maybe to be a coach themselves some day. The true impact of that process is felt best in the lives of he next generation as they share what they learned. Their mentors have taught them how to mentor.  One of the Mentors whose journey is described in Chapter 4  is Jackie Zicaro, an Olympia stalwart who I knew as Jackie Shaw when I coached her in high school.  Jackie went to Olympia as a babysitter, a ca...