You Can Be Anything You Want 


 

One key element of the hero’s journey encouraged by Dave Grace and Olympia Sports Camp is the idea that we all can be whatever we want to be. We all are heroes on our own journey and all it takes is a passion and desire to see the path through to wherever it takes us. This brings me to one of the most interesting people in my Olympia family:  Lexi Jamieson Marsh. Lexi combines a love of theatre and artistic endeavours with being an athlete. She has a wit and social conscience that inspires. 

 


Lexi’s circuitous path to Olympia Sports Camp began in Amherst, Massachusetts, where as a young girl she acted in local plays every summer for about ten years. Throughout these years Lexi always saw the importance of balance in her life. Amherst was a hot bed for Ultimate Frisbee and Lexi loved the game. 

 

“I see performing on stage as the same thing as playing in an ultimate frisbee game as everyone has their part to play for the whole thing to be a positive outcome,” Lexi says,” I think balance in life is not given the importance it deserves. In the theatre I was known as the jock and in Ultimate I was seen as the theatre major. Both aspects were a release from the other and a reminder that there are many dynamics that define us as people.”

 

After high school Lexi decided that she needed to see the bigger world and randomly applied to major in theatre at the University of Toronto. She auditioned in crutches, recovering from ACL surgery, and was accepted.

 

That random decision changed the direction of Lexi’s life and introduced her to her life partner.

 

Lexi got involved with the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team at U of T. The Men’s team was captained by Peter Jamieson. Peter offered Lexi the opportunity to train with a group throughout the winter. Six months later they started dating. That is how a computer engineer and a theatre major connected through the power of sport.

 

Peter had run the gamut of the Olympia experience, from camper to counsellor to coach and approached Coach Grace about running an Ultimate Frisbee camp. The experience has shown Lexi that the camp re-enforced the idea of balance in life, taking risks, and encouraging others to do the same.

” I loved reconnecting to coaching with three sessions a day, but I also loved the freedom to enjoy the beautiful waterfront and meeting people from other sports and finding out our commonalities. Through our difference in perspectives, we learn a lot about ourselves. I love the comfort in knowing how great the camp is and the constancy of relationships year after year.”

 

That social conscience and passion for others led to an idea that became a world-renowned project. Lexi, along with good friend Ellen Currano, a paleontologist from the University of Wyoming, felt that the respect that women are shown in traditionally male-dominated professions didn’t match their contribution. In a light-hearted moment Ellen said that if she wore a beard in the field, she’d gain more regard from her peers. That was all the idea that Lexi needed.

 

Together they created the Bearded Lady Project: Challenging the Face of Science. The Project breaks the stereotypical image of the burly, masculine paleontologist and exposes a societal prejudice.  The project has grown to include a 22-minute documentary short, a book, and a series of portraits that has been on display at science schools across the US and at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. This all happened because the passion of these two friends spread and struck a nerve with female paleontologists. The link to the documentary is https://vimeo.com/212682052

 

 

Living just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, Lexi, and Peter and now their son Jack love their ‘Canadian trip’ as they combine a week at Olympia with seeing family in Sudbury and reconnecting with their friends from their university days. 

 

Lexi sees a strong parallel between her idea of the Bearded Lady Project that became perhaps a life-changing opportunity for some young scientist of the future and what she sees day by day, year by year, at Olympia Sports Camp. Lexi sent me this picture of a week of Ultimate Frisbee athletes and coaches. Lucky campers hearing a great message from great people.




 

“Olympia is coaching six hours a day but it’s so much more than that,” Lexi says,” We have so much fun being with such good people one week a year and learn from each other’s lives and perspectives. The idea for the Bearded Lady Project came from the mutual love between friends, but it comes down to risk. Suck it up and go for it.  Back to the saying we have heard hundreds of times from Dave Grace, you have to take the bat off the shoulder and the possibilities are endless.”




The link to the blog is TuesdayswithDave.blogspot.com

This blog is about the journey of the writing of the book A Hero's Journey: From Little Norway to Olympia Sports Camp. The blog will contain excerpts from the book and my personal thoughts on what the place and the people that make up Olympia's journey is all about. The title comes from the great book Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. The blog's title is recognizing Dave Grace as Camp Director, but all content is my own. 

 

 

 

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