Tuesday's With Dave

Along any journey, we find allies who help guide us. Many of these allies are mentors, friends and colleagues - like-minded people who have walked the walk and share of their experiences and talents to help us grow. Allies abound at a place like Olympia Sports Camp because the camp cultivates a sense of community and teamwork that stimulates allies and lifelong friends for us to meet and learn from. The book A Hero’s Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp is full of such stories.    But sometimes allies find us, and the result can be something we never saw coming and our journey is much more enriching because of them. Let me introduce you to Jennifer Sharman.   No need to look up the name on any Olympia alumni staff list. Jennifer has never been an Olympian, never heard of Olympia, never even heard of Leo Rautins, the writer of the forward for this book and one of the pre-eminent figures in Canadian basketball media. Yet Jennifer took this book process to a whole other l

In the summer of 2019,  Blaine Scatcherd  was introducing himself at the opening meeting of week 5 and told the assembly of coaches that he worked as a counsellor at Olympia for 4 ¾ years. People who knew the story, including Dave Grace, roared with laughter at the self-effacing honesty Blaine showed when recounting an incident that may have been the worst in his career, yet a defining moment that changed him forever and made him a better teacher and coach, and a better person.    Blaine Scatcherd is from Ottawa, where he was coached in football at Glebe Collegiate Institute by Olympia coach Skip Riddell. He went on to play football at Acadia University and played professionally in France for 2 years before embarking on his teaching profession.   “Skip recommended to me in grade 11 that I work at Olympia as it was a great place for an athlete and would-be coach, so I applied to Olympia with Skip’s reference. I went down to Toronto for a group interview and thought I aced it. I didn’t g

Women in Sport By society’s scorecard,  Michele McConney  is a success story, but by Olympia Sports Camp standards and the tenets of the hero’s journey, she is so much more. In 2019, Michele was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) for her work at Georgian College in Barrie. A parallel career of coaching at Olympia has allowed her to impact the lives of hundreds of campers as well.   When starting her journey, Michele had one path in mind, but then life took her on another path, one that she followed for 38 years. She grew up an athlete in Barrie and had a goal of studying athletic therapy at Sheridan College. She was placed on the waiting list, so she committed to her second choice:  Seneca College in Toronto to study recreation facility management.  Her second choice became a great choice for Michele, in more ways than one.    “No one had recruited me for volleyball, but I decided to go out for the team. Sports had always be

Kyle Rysdale  has done everything at Olympia Sports Camp. He has been a camper, a coach’s kid, a counsellor, a senior staff, and a coach. Every step along the journey Kyle was known for his work ethic. I had the good fortune to know Kyle before I knew anything about Olympia as I helped coach the Queen Elizabeth Park High School junior football team in Oakville when I was in teacher’s college, and this gangly 6’6” 170-pound guy would ask me a million questions. Great guy then, great guy now.   Sports were always a big part of Kyle’s life, although he calls himself a late bloomer. His dad, Ken, played football and basketball at Western University. In high school, Kyle played on every team he could, and he was coached by a staff of great coaches, including Olympia veteran Wilf Philipps.   By the end of high school, Kyle had grown to 6’8” but he wasn’t highly recruited, including to his obvious choice of Western. His self-effacing honesty about what happened when he got on campus in London