School sports teams, so integral to campus life in the U.S., are not a tradition in most of the world. The exception is Canada, yet U Sports is a long way from the NCAA in terms of profile and the generation of big money.
The University of Victoria athletics department has helped out its varsity athletes by hosting the annual Vikes Championship Breakfast, which fills CARSA gym and has raised nearly $9 million for student-athlete scholarships, since its inception in 2008. The 2024 edition of the Breakfast will held this morning.
“The donations raised during the breakfast event helps pay for a good portion of the tuition, and in terms of not having to take that extra shift at work, which gives you more time to train,” said UVic Vikes rugby player Carissa Norsten.
“All these things are important to student athletes,” added Norsten, a kinesiology major, who also works part-time at the front desk at CARSA.
They all added up to helping get Norsten to the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, where she won the silver medal with the Canadian rugby sevens team, which also included former UVic players Krissy Scurfield and Shalaya Valenzuela.
“Playing rugby at UVic was a huge stepping stone for me,” added Norsten, among 77 UVic athletes to have won Olympic medals since 1984.
“Having those Vikes connections in Paris with Krissy and Shalaya was so cool,” said Norsten, who also won silver with Canada in the 2023 Santiago Pan Am Games.
UVic head coach and former national-team player Brittany Waters helped develop the Olympic silver-medallist trio on Wallace Field.
“It’s a big deal when Olympians are choosing to play in this league, and it demonstrates the strength of U Sports as a pathway for Rugby Canada,” Waters said in a statement.
But without the funding, there would be no U Sports varsity athletes.
Norsten and Waters are part of this morning’s rugby-themed keynote speakers for the Vikes Championship Breakfast, along with UVic and Canada rugby builder Mike Holmes.
Rugby has played a big part in UVic sports with former Vikes great and two-time World Cup player Nathan Hirayama, the Canadian flag-bearer in the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the keynote speaker for the 2021 Vikes Championship Breakfast.
Other past keynote speakers have included Olympic gold-medallist triathlete Simon Whitfield, Olympic gold-medallist rower Adam Kreek, Paralympics multi-medallist swimmer Stephanie Dixon, former Canada rugby World Cup captain Gareth Rees, two-time field-hockey Olympian Nancy Mollenhauer and former World Cup and Vancouver Whitecaps soccer player Bob Lenarduzzi.
The 2023 Vikes Championship Breakfast raised $746,823 and the 2022 event $807,256 in aid of UVic athletes.
This year’s total will be announced following today’s event. The university contributes $250,000 annually.
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