INNISFAIL – Like the old Bob Dylan song, the times are "a-changin’" at St. Marguerite Bourgeoys Catholic School.
That’s in the sporting sense.
New athletic director Christian Damgaard is already reshaping the school’s various sport programs for them to become more competitive against other schools, and to give young athletes more opportunities to experience athletics outside the community.
“Yes, without question. Basically, getting them to go out and represent our school,” said Damgaard. “And to get beyond the participation sort of realm where we're just offering one team, and a chance for a few kids to play and get into where we have a program that feeds into itself year after year after year.”
His first mission on this quest was the school’s volleyball program, which wrapped up its current season last month.
“Right now, we have still got kids in the gym at lunch playing volleyball, so we're pretty pumped on the future of the program and moving forward,” said Damgaard.
In previous years before his arrival there was just one senior team for boys and another for girls at the school, which goes from pre-K to Grade 9. This year it was doubled with four teams; a junior and senior team for both girls and boys.
Damgaard said his two senior volleyball teams played in the Chinook’s Edge North League, with the boys finishing fourth and girls placing third, which he felt was an impressive result as the players are young and inexperienced by being “grades 7 and 8 heavy.”
In fact, the girls qualified for CWAJHAA (Central Western Alberta Junior High Athletic Association) which was in Bentley.
“It was definitely an experience for them, a little above their heads with the age difference as they were playing mostly Grade 9s,” said Damgaard, adding the school’s two junior teams played this season in the Red Deer Catholic Middle School League. “For the girls’ team, which was pretty Grade 5 heavy, it was an experience-building year for them.
“But the boys team finished second, which was quite good against huge schools. That was quite awesome. We're pretty proud of them,” he added. “And then all of it funnels into next year when we're going to have a bunch of Grade 9s who will have played and we're hoping to turn this into a volleyball program, something where we're a volleyball school, and its continuous; not just like we're relying on good athletes to just play against other schools that have club players.”
Damgaard noted there are only a few young athletes in the school who play in clubs outside of school.
And now he has moved on to reshape the school’s basketball program. Tryouts are completed and practices have started for the new season.
The boys’ and girls’ senior teams are in league play this season while the juniors will see developmental action.
“There is one of each gender but they're not playing in a league. They're just so young. It's pretty grades 5 and 6 heavy, so they would get crushed,” said Damgaard. “We're running developmental teams. They are going to be playing in some modified tournaments and exhibition games throughout the year.
“For basketball in our region we have to get to the point where we don't have Grade 5s on the team that just aren't big enough or developed enough to play,” he said, emphasizing the building of school’s basketball is also a high priority. “We are pumped that we can give the kids an opportunity to just practise twice a week and play some games and just get better.”
The basketball regular season for the seniors’ girls and boys teams began last week.
