The Challenges of Small Town Athletics

Every child deserves an equal and ample opportunities to play sports. That tagline has been part of many initiatives from Canadian companies and organizations to develop a “no child left behind” culture in our country. Canadian Tire has the “Jumpstart” program that raises money for kids to be able to afford gear, registration fees, and any other start-up fees there might be. This program has been exceptional in execution and provided many kids with an opportunity to play the sport they desire, especially something like hockey where gear is seriously expensive and many Canadian families simply can’t afford to put their child in a hockey program. Programs like Jumpstart can create elite athletes and extremely passionate players who are wanting more. Whether you are part of a Jumpstart program or not, achieving a higher level of play in your sport is more difficult to attain compared to simply being registered in a league.

I grew up in Terrace, British Columbia. Terrace has a population of 10,000 people on a good day, and all the towns that surround it within a 5 hour drive have maybe 10,000 people combined. I was never aware I lived in what most people considered to be a small town until maybe 8th grade because that’s really when my eyes were opened to higher level sporting competition from bigger cities. This really showcased how much living in a small town could put you at a disadvantage in high level athletics.

Consider this, rural areas of BC usually only have one highschool per town, the next closest town is usually at least an hour and a half drive. If you were to drive an hour and a half in Vancouver, you could probably drive past up to 30 highschools on certain routes. That alone should speak volumes about how far some BC teams have to travel compared to others. Opportunities for competition can be much more difficult to come by if you are left with longer travel and limited options. Playing sports from grade 8 through grade 12 looks entirely different in pretty much every region in British Columbia, due to many factors that the participating athletes can’t control. Fair does not always mean equal. Everyone should get a fair opportunity to play the sports they want to play, but that opportunity is not always equal as compared to more heavily populated or developed locations. This can understandably cause some frustration for committed athletes and coaches alike, and it’s not always an easy fix. I’m sure most athletes raised in a small town can attest to some of the glaring problems you face that a large population of the province never have to worry about. There are several things that you need to run a competitive highschool sports program, meeting those needs is difficult when you are provided with limited resources. At times it could be compared to opening a Steakhouse in a town where 95% of the population is vegetarian. The business plan becomes difficult to maintain when the demographics and working capital are completely stacked against you, and that analogy encapsulates the multiple issues with small town programs. Bringing attention to some of these issues like populous and expense is a good first step to bridging these gaps and inequalities as well as making others aware of what it’s like on the small town grind. Population covers a wide range of aspects I want to examine, such as the amount of committed personnel, funding issues, and demographics.

Having a larger pool of people to pull from arguably creates a sports team with more potential to be talented. A successful program relies on committed and passionate individuals outside of the boundaries of the playing field a lot more than you may think. It’s never really the players that create the programs, it’s the coaches. Great programs tend to have experienced or well-tenured coaches starting by at least 8th grade. Pulling a coach from a small town with the ability to run a successful program becomes extremely difficult, especially scenarios where a longtime coach retires or steps down. The commitment is larger than you might expect for someone to really take on the role of a head coach in a small town if you’re expected to be competitive. I am going to use basketball as a consistent example because that’s the sport I’ve had the most experience in witnessing the growth of.

I was lucky enough to be in school during a period where we had a great system of raising not just basketball players, but good athletes in general. Youth basketball started in Grade 3 and went up until grade 10, My dad was the one who brought the Terrace Youth Basketball Association into the town when he moved there in the 80’s. He built up a program where it was easy for any child to sign up and play, without the prerequisite of having to demonstrate a certain level of talent or seriousness for the sport. He would have the highschool team he was currently coaching help him run the program, by assisting with coaching, refereeing, scorekeeping, you name it. These highschool ball players would pass on the knowledge that my dad had instilled in them to the kids in the local Youth Basketball Association. Any extra positions would be filled in by parents who were able to volunteer their time.

By the time you reached grade 6, there was an elementary school league. This steadily increased the number of kids playing basketball, just in time for 8th grade where everything starts to become a bigger commitment. Commitment is an important word here because being able to find enough committed individuals to run a competitive basketball program in a town of 10,000 people where hockey is the predominant sport is damn near impossible. I can’t even imagine what it’s been like for the surrounding towns of Terrace with less than 10,000 people combined.

Having committed coaches leave a program has such a significant impact on small towns because finding suitable and knowledgeable replacements is no easy task. Charles Hays Secondary from Prince Rupert won an AA Provincial Championship in March, and have been competitive on a provincial level for the last 4 or 5 years to boot. They have been blessed with committed coaches and a program that has fully developed a basketball culture in Prince Rupert, but maintaining this is where it becomes challenging. Retirement hits a harder in smaller communities when the level and standard of commitment for a replacement coach is super high.

Basketball in Terrace has experienced its timeline of success as well, but unfortunately maintaining that culture of prosperity over the last 5 years has been ineffective. Youth basketball has become less prominent and the elementary league now ceases to exist. The middle school has been unable to find committed coaches, and there seems to lack an emphasis of importance on school sports throughout grades 6 to 9. Without a “feeder” program, kids who want to play competitive highschool sports aren’t even exposed to real competition until grade 10. If you can’t introduce a child to a certain level of competition until they are 15-16 years old, it makes it a lot more challenging for kids who are passionate about that sport moving forward. Kids are looking for something to do, and I’ve substitute taught in Terrace enough to know that middle school students are ripping on a Juul instead of being provided with appealing active alternatives. It is more likely for programs within smaller populations to have a generational phase out, where the individuals who built and supported the program will need to move on. So before you critique the lifestyle of “today’s generation of kids”, think about the foundation that has been laid down for them first. Small communities need a higher percentage of their population to commit to a sports program, so they actually have a solid and committed foundation to keep kids active. It takes more collaboration and team effort than people often realize.

So let’s say you have a well-built program in your small community. Are there other well-built programs in the surrounding towns? The probability of this is on par with pulling out a royal flush in poker. Location is important, because you could live in a small B.C. town, and if you happen to be down south you might find yourself closer to high level competition facilities in places like Kelowna or Vancouver. Northern BC is mostly small towns which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, depending on the school you attend in those communities. There are several Single A christian schools for example that flourish provincially in basketball and especially volleyball (shout out to all my dutch volleyball homies from the north). However, on the AAA and AA level of schools in the north, there is an evident lack of competition especially in regions as the Northwest, Kootenays, and Central Interior. As mentioned before, this isn’t always attributed directly to the athletes. It is often simply due to a lack of resources and personnel available to help and support them so that they can remain competitive.

My highschool basketball team would often end up travelling 3 hours away to play 2 games where we would win by at least 40 points in each. Neither participating teams get anything out of that weekend, and then they travel back home. By that I mean, travelling a long distance every weekend just to get games that may or may not help one’s development can be pretty demoralizing. Say a team ends up attending the Provincial Championships at the end of the season, having played in a bunch of blowout games leading up to that point. They are now facing the best in the Province having little to no prior exposure to that level of basketball. Obviously that huge step up affects the team because those athletes would have built habits around playing mediocre basketball at best the whole season, forcing them to string together wins that seem damn near impossible. Adapting to a culture of low level play hinders athletes abilities to adapt when facing stronger opponents.

Now you might be thinking “okay, why don’t you make more trips to Prince George and Vancouver during your season for that experience then?”. The simple answer is that DO YOU REALIZE HOW EXPENSIVE THAT IS? Living in Terrace means that those are either flights, or a 7 hour bus ride to Prince George/Vanderhoof. When I was in highschool, My dad (head coach of our team) did the best he could to build up the bank account of the team, and as players, we sold coupon books and ran the youth basketball program to help reduce those costs. However, a trip to Prince George was still about $150 per player with all the program money, not including food. We would attempt to do this 3 times a year, which as you can see, did add up. Trying to organize 2 trips to Vancouver on top of that means just asking for money that a lot of these kids and families don’t have. Still not convinced? We played 30 games in Grade 12, not including Provincials, and at least 20 of those were out of town.

I was blessed to have parents who believed in spending money on me to play sports, because they had parents who did the same for them. I had teammates who had to fork out the money out of their own pockets due to their parent’s inability or unwillingness. Maintaining a job to pay for trips, attending games and practices, and going to school sounds horrible, but they somehow made it work. Gaining sponsorship in a small town is exceedingly difficult as well. The main source of sponsoring we got were those coupon books which gave us discounts for local businesses. It was a lot better than nothing, but still falls under the moniker of a “time consuming fundraising scheme”. Often times those small town businesses weren’t able to go beyond what they could provide in their coupon books, because they lacked the profit to do so.

You want to continue playing after highschool? Good luck getting recruited when no one knows who you are, or that the town you live in even exists. University teams rarely have formal tryouts, they might possibly host an ID camp when they have a couple roster spots up for grabs. I was blessed with an invitation to an ID camp from UNBC when my highschool season finished, which I feel like my dad might’ve had to haggle for (never asked if that was the case). Besides that, I didn’t have any offers, and why would I? We had a year of beating up on struggling teams, and a very small sample size of competing against top schools. Even if you have a big game against these big city squads, you rarely have the opportunity to prove your abilities consistently.

Provincials was maybe the only occasion I had a University coach watch me, and if you have a bad showing then it could easily be over for you. It doesn’t matter if you played amazing in the 26 other games you had that season, there is no additional privilege if you come from a small town. Several of my teammates could have continued to play at a post secondary level. They didn’t know that though, because no one was willing to watch them. The story is the same for so many small town athletes, you get counted out before anyone even knows what you can do. This often creates a real lack of ambition. Even if you have what it takes, even if you’ve had to fund your own sports career your entire life, even if you’ve overcome larger obstacles - if you’re from a small town, you just don’t get the same opportunities the rest of the province does.

If you’re like me and overcame some of these small town obstacles, something’s there - passion.

You can’t exactly fix a situation like this, if you’re raised in a small town then so be it. However, if a small community can raise awareness and provide support for growing sports programs, it becomes easier to develop a healthier athletic culture. It takes committed coaches and supportive parents to get our future athletes to the level they deserve to be at.

For my small town athletes reading; own your underdog status and rep your hometown proudly. The north-west may continue to be overlooked when post-secondary level talent is examined, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prevail through that. Commitment is needed more than anything, and putting in the time is what will put successful young athletes on the path to success. Evidence of that? There are so many small town athletes that are excelling at the post-secondary level because someone believed in them from the start. Shoutout to my underdogs:

Trent Monkman - Smithers Secondary School - University of Victoria Men’s Basketball

Morgan Monkman - Smithers Secondary School - Brock University Women’s Volleyball

Saymon Loki - Bulkley Valley Christian School - University of Northern British Columbia Men’s Basketball

Cassidy Kitchen - Caledonia Senior Secondary - Mount Royal University Women’s Volleyball

Carly Davies - Caledonia Senior Secondary - Mount Royal University Women’s Volleyball

Correina McNeice - Caledonia Senior Secondary - Camosun College Women’s Volleyball

Jacey Neid - Caledonia Senior Secondary - Douglas College Women’s Volleyball

Macey Hogg - Caledonia Senior Secondary - Thompson Rivers University Women’s Volleyball

Grant Hooper - Smithers Secondary School - Vancouver Island University Men’s Soccer

Eric Lees - Charles Hays Secondary School - Camosun College Men’s Basketball

Ben Rabel - Charles Hays Secondary School - Douglas College Men’s basketball

Jonathan Mueller - Nechako Valley Secondary School - University of Augustana-Alberta Men’s Basketball

Pasha Ormerod - Caledonia Senior Secondary - Durham College Women’s Volleyball

Myah Bowal - Caledonia Senior Secondary - University of New Brunswick Women’s Hockey

Justin McChesney - Charles Hays Secondary - University of Victoria Men’s Basketball

Josue Bokongole - Smithers Secondary School - Columbia Bible College Men’s Basketball

Colton Pacheco - Caledonia Senior Secondary - Medicine Hat College Men’s Soccer

Mitch Linley - North Peace Secondary School - University of Northern British Columbia Men’s Soccer

Tyler Dozzi - Caledonia Senior Secondary - University of British Columbia Men’s Track & Field

Evan Veldman - Centennial Christian School - The King’s University Men’s Volleyball

Liam McChesney - Charles Hays Secondary - Utah State Men’s Basketball (NCAA Div 1)

Jesse Barnes - Queen Charlotte Secondary (Skidegate) - Chadron State College Men’s Basketball (NCAA Div 2)

Ryan Kunar - Caledonia Senior Secondary - University of Victoria Varsity League of Legends