Anyone who has been to Olympia Sports Camp, and especially people lucky enough to have worked there during the 30-year tenure of Associate Director Greg Rogers, knows what an impact this man has had on the camp, and on literally hundreds of lives. But how many know the story of how he became a teacher and how that eventually led him to Olympia in the first place?
A natural leader who shows his care for kids and his acumen for a high-energy existence, one may think he was destined to teach from an early age. The reality is that Greg's journey didn’t take him toward teaching until he was a university student at York, studying urban planning, and was being groomed by Bell Canada in their young managers program to be in their engineering department. His dad had worked for Bell and his path seemed set. But as many paths diverge, Greg found teaching, or maybe teaching found Greg.
It comes down to a floor hockey game.
One of Greg’s mentors was his high school geography teacher, Tom Sullivan. They had kept in close contact over the years and out of the blue Tom phoned Greg and said the Brebeuf high school staff needed him to play in a floor hockey game that night. At the game Tom introduced Greg to a man named Paul who said that he had just got back from Africa. Greg simply responded that he would love to go to Africa.
That simple response changed the direction of Greg’s life.
After the floor hockey game Paul asked Greg if he was serious about Africa. If so, he was able to offer Greg a 2-year job teaching in Zambia. Engaged at the time, Greg’s soon-to-be wife Eileen, a nurse, was offered a job too. The funny part is that Eileen said that Greg had no idea how to teach! The young couple took the bat off the shoulder and worked 1976-1978 in Zambia. Greg loved making connections with people that teaching provided. Bell had given him a two year leave of absence but when he got home from his Zambian experience Greg decided that he wanted to go to teacher’s college and become a teacher. He had found his vocation.
Greg went to U of T for teacher’s college and taught at Chinguacousy High School in Peel before his mentor Tom Sullivan offered him a job at St. Jean de Brebeuf Catholic High School in Woodbridge. He spent ten years there teaching in the social science department while coaching football and rugby. Eventually he became acting vice principal. He was getting a great reputation within the board for his leadership initiatives and was seconded to the Toronto Catholic District School Board for one year to head up the Catholic Leadership program. That one-year secondment lasted until he retired from teaching 26 years later.
But how does this story tie in to Olympia? As acting vice principal one of his ideas was to take all 200 grade nines for a weekend retreat to build spirit and community. A friend suggested that a camp in Huntsville called Olympia would be big enough to meet his group’s needs. That’s how Greg found Olympia. What happened next was how Olympia found Greg.
Greg brought several of his senior rugby players to act as leaders for the grade nine retreat. The group was divided into 'families.' He put together a program that built school spirit and confidence in the grade nines and they had a great weekend. Greg had noticed that this man was hanging around, watching what was going on. On the last day that man introduced himself as Dave Grace, who told Greg he was very impressed with what he and his group had been doing.
Dave asked Greg,” What else do you do?” We’ve all seen the answer for 30 years.
That initial conversation started a high level of mutual respect between these two great leaders. The next year Greg ran Olympia’s first rugby camp, the year after that he and Dave came up with All Sport Adventure Camp, and then developed a three-week leadership camp that included a high school credit. In 1996 Dave made the obvious official as he named Greg the Associate Director of Olympia Sports Camp.
I called Greg an Olympian before he knew anything about Olympia. Always looking to engage kids and broaden their experiences and understand their potential, Greg’s favorite part of Olympia may be the energy of the opening and closing ceremonies. He especially likes the team approach it took to change high energy songs into dances, many of which he had a hand in helping develop, that get the camp ready for a great week. A opening ceremony highlight now is the roller coaster, led by Greg and always a crowd favourite.
“Working with and connecting with these young people keeps me young, emotionally young. Sometimes at Olympia I feel that I am dancing through life. They say that play is one of the best ways to build up relationships, and that is a key to life.”
Connecting with students and building relationships is a tenet of Greg’s leadership style. One of the senior rugby players who helped out at that grade 9 retreat was Mark Kielburger, he of the Me to We organization. They have kept close since those shared high school years. Their relationship went full circle when Greg retired and the former student came calling and offered Greg a job. He would lead groups on life-changing trips to various African countries. This process was like the Olympia ideals going global, and as a result many Olympia staff have had the opportunity to go to places like Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. In search of adventure, in search of themselves. Some Olympians have even joined the staff of We To Me.
All because Greg Rogers was good at floor hockey.
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