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CSTA brings event-hosting expertise to university sports in Canada
U SPORTS sits down with one key athlete, coach, and staff member of each U SPORTS athletic program in our new interview series “Getting to know…”
- Name: Ken McInnes
- School: University of Lethbridge
- Position: Executive Director, Sport and Recreation Services
- Previous job/position: Executive Director, Human Resources
- Hometown: Lethbridge, Alta.
1. How did you get to your current position, and what do you enjoy most about our job?
I love being in the middle of the student experience. I moved into this role at the request of the university’s leadership when our previous executive director retired. The only downside to this position is that I seem to get older but our student-athletes stay 20 years old!
2. Who has had the most influence on your career?
My former track and field coach, George Gemer – the namesake of the U SPORTS Athlete of the Meet award – who never let “no” slow him down.
3. What is your greatest sporting moment or achievement?
For me, the greatest moment was a track meet in Victoria where my grandparents got a chance to see me compete for the first time and the thrill of sharing that moment with them.
4. How would you define a Pronghorn athletics student-athlete?
Tenacious and hard working. To be a successful student-athlete, the formula is simply a lot of hard work with equal measure of tenacity.
5. What does success look like for the Pronghorn athletics program?
Success is a student-athlete looking back over their academic and athletic pursuits in university and recognizing all they achieved and how it has had a positive influence in whatever path they chose after university.
6. What’s the biggest challenge you face in today’s sports world?
Balancing the expectations of the student-athletes, coaches, university leadership and program supporters with fiscal realities of operating in a university budget environment.
7. Where would you like to see Canadian university sport in the next three to five years?
I would like to see Canadian university sport is a more stable funding model that provides our student-athletes and coaches with a great athletic and academic experience, while providing a clear pathway to high performance sport at the national and international level.
8. If you could sit down for dinner with one person in the sports industry (athlete, coach or manager), who would it be? Why? What would you talk about?
That is a tough question to single out one person. I think the person I would be most interested in talking to, at this time, would be Nick Saban who is the head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide.
I would like to know how he keeps being successful year over year, which is very difficult to do at the best of times but especially in collegiate sports. There is quite a bit of literature on the “process” he has developed. However, I would like to know his thinking behind why he put it together like that and how much is dependent upon him controlling the levers and why it seems to work at the college level but didn’t at the professional level.
In my limited time in university sport, it seems there is a natural cycle of four to five years which makes sense given the time to get a degree, eligibility, etc. So how do you take a program that has been successful and stay successful? I think he would have some very interesting insights into that process and why it works at the college/university level.
9. What would you say to a sports fan who’s never watched a U SPORTS game/tournament/competition?
Just come out. Just look at the level of competition and how much passion each U SPORTS student-athlete brings day in and day out for no other reason than the thrill of competition and pushing oneself a bit more every day. I watched our U SPORTS women’s rugby teams compete at the recent national championship in a blizzard, literally and not one athlete complained - they just went out and competed hard! It was inspirational!
10. What do you enjoy doing when you’re away from work?
Spending time with my wife, discovering new single malts from all over the world and testing myself on the golf course. I am a bit curious, so I like reading on a variety of subjects and flipboard is my friend that leads me down all sorts of interesting intellectual paths.