Decorated ringette coach and Olds High School graduate Lorrie Horne was the guest speaker at the ASAA 3A basketball championship banquet last week at the Alumni Centre.
Horne won four national titles as a player and has coached Canada's senior and junior teams, in addition to spending time in the Finnish National League. In 2008, she was inducted into the Canadian Ringette Hall of Fame.
Most recently, she coached Canada's U-21 team to a gold medal victory at this year's World Ringette Championships and shared that experience with the crowd of nearly 400 student-athletes, plus coaches, administrators, special guests and volunteers.
Horne encouraged them to pursue excellence and to put academics first, emphasizing the “student” in student athlete.
"You must be a student athlete to be successful. You must gain a craft in your life to be successful. You must have an education. Those choices are pivotal in your world. I know I'm nagging at you like your mom but sometimes you need to hear it from an outside source," she said.
She also told them to spot controllable factors and non-controllable factors. The former included effort, attitude and treating others with respect; referees, injuries and sickness in the latter.
The banquet also included remarks from Mayor Judy Dahl, CESD superintendent of schools Kurt Sacher, CESD board member Trudy James, OHS principal and ASAA president Tom Christensen.
Musical performers included Lois Munchinsky's Olds Elementary School Choir and The Polyjesters.
Spartans athletes Kayley Watt and Baylen Unger read the Athlete's Oath and Katie Collin the blessing before dinner.
The MC was former Spartan and OHS graduate Jared Hammer, now working as a news reporter at Sunny 94 FM in Lacombe.
