A new athletic director formally took the reins at Olds College last week. Linda Henderson began her tenure with the Broncos last Monday (May 1), after almost a decade with the NAIT Ooks in Edmonton.
A new athletic director formally took the reins at Olds College last week. Linda Henderson began her tenure with the Broncos last Monday (May 1), after almost a decade with the NAIT Ooks in Edmonton.
The Broncos' former athletic director Bob Murray left in February, after almost four years, to take a position as athletics manager at SAIT in Calgary.
"She brings a wealth of experience and knowledge and enthusiasm and real passion for athletics," said Tanya McDonald, vice-president of advancement at Olds College.
Last fall, the Broncos began a full organizational review to determine "what are we doing, how can we be doing it better, what direction do we want to take," said McDonald. She said that a three-year plan would be finalized over the coming months, once the new director has had a chance to provide some input.
McDonald says the college is pushing for a high-performance culture, which will aim to achieve both athletic success with the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference, and academic success for their student athletes.
"Those are the pillars that we are excited about having Linda lead forward," said McDonald, "really bringing forward the values and the behaviours that will help shape the culture of the department towards high performance."
RESULT AND RETENTION
Henderson said her high-performance mandate for the Broncos will focus on two things: results and retention.
First, she said, her priority is to elevate the program so that it is competitive at the ACAC level.
"A dream would be to have (the teams) all compete at the ACAC conference championships within the first, I would say, three years," said Henderson.
In addition to competing, Henderson would like to see conference championships come to Olds on a regular basis. She says hosting is key, because it draws in the community, profiles the college and the town, improves facilities, and it can help retain players more long term.
"If you can host a conference championship, kids will stay because they want to compete at that level," she said.
Henderson says retaining student athletes is a challenge at the college level. Because many of the programs are only two years, it takes some creativity to encourage athletes to stick around for the full four years of eligibility. One solution Henderson suggests is to consider completing two programs, what she calls "two plus two."
"My thing always is that business goes with anything," she said, "so if (you) did a two-year business and a two-year specialization, then you've got your student athlete for four years."
OLDS ADVANTAGE
Henderson said the college has two advantages working in its favour: on-campus housing and great facilities.
She said that parents want to make sure their children are going to be safe, and residences can ease that transition, with secure housing, daily meals and supervision.
Meanwhile, Henderson said, there are great facilities in Olds, both at the Community Learning Campus and around town. She added that she has worked in settings where even a gymnasium wasn't available.
LEAVING NAIT
Henderson said she didn't have plans to leave NAIT, but her five-year contract was not renewed for a third time, as she had been hoping. She said her supervisor wanted to go in a different direction.
"I'm high performance, and (she's) more participation, and that's not my thing," said Henderson. "That wasn't the mandate that I went in there for, so it was a nice parting of ways."
Henderson said she knew what was on the table in taking the reins of the Broncos. Not only has she been working within the conference for more than a decade – giving her a chance to visit the college and watch the teams play – but she was also on the committee for evaluating the Broncos' application to join the ACAC four years ago.
"I was excited about the new challenge, because this is what I do best. I build programs from the bottom up, and that's what they wanted me to do."
