Athletic Director's Corner
We welcome you to our newly redesigned mountiepride.ca site that will continue to display and share all the successes of our Mounties student-athletes. The last decade of Mounties Athletics has been filled with unforgettable moments, indescribable feelings, and much to be thankful for and celebrate. As we look to the future, know that we do this with renewed passion, purpose and determination to continue to build our Mounties Athletics and Recreation programs.
Being a varsity student-athlete is a unique experience that brings with it many sacrifices and requires the utmost discipline. Beyond the rigours of juggling a full-time class load, our Mountie student-athletes also participate in weekly practices and give up most of their weekends for competition. We pride ourselves with the quality of human beings that not only arrive to campus in their first-year, but also the individuals that they become once they leave. Mounties have been succeeding in a vast majority of careers – whether as doctors, teachers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, etc. – and we continue to be amazed at what our graduating student-athletes accomplish. Being a Mounties student-athlete means you aim for excellence in both academics and athletics.
In order to best support our student-athletes we need to provide them with the best opportunity to succeed on their playing surface. The first significant facility upgrade was led by a group of incredibly dedicated Alumni who raised over $1 million in 2015 to build a full-size outdoor turf field. Alumni Field is appropriately named after those that allowed us to offer a state-of-the-art playing surface for our Fall varsity and club sports. With our Fall sports looked after, the attention then turned to our court sports as the university committed to renovating McCormack Gymnasium in 2022, investing $5.5 million into a complete overhaul. The next stage of our infrastructure improvements will come in the form of a multi-use athletics complex as we look to increase the opportunity for both our varsity and sports. With an anticipated opening date of Fall 2029, this latest addition will elevate our ability to offer the best student-athlete experience possible.
As we look into the future, we will require an updated vision that shares some of our Mountie PRIDE values that defined us from 2017-2022: passion, resilience, inclusiveness, discipline and excellence. Over the course of the next 18 months, we will consult stakeholders for the creation of a new strategic plan that will shape the next era of Mounties Athletics & Recreation.
Go Mounties!
Jacques Bellefleur
Director, Athletics and Recreation