By Howard Tsumura
VarsityLetters.ca
VANCOUVER — If you believe in the unseen forces of the basketball universe, then maybe you can better understand the kind of pressure the game’s mythical matchmakers were under this past summer when it came time to finding the next head coach of the UBC Thunderbirds women’s basketball team.
Their task?
Could they pair what would become the most senior-laden class in the last 30-plus years of UBC women’s basketball with a new leader, one nimble enough to navigate all of the complexities that come with a veteran core of student-athletes who would be undergoing what was now a third change in coaching leadership over a four-year span?
And if they couldn’t, what might that mean for both the immediate and the future prospects of a program which had so toughened its mettle over a spirited run to the U SPORTS national semifinals last March right here on the Point Grey campus?
It was a quarry of the most elusive variety, and yet just as the search was about to close, it so naturally received the conclusion it seemed to deserve.
And now, with a new Canada West season set to tip off at War Memorial Gymnasium this Friday (5:30 p.m., Canada West TV) at home to Fraser Valley Cascades, that’s just how Dave Taylor — who had coached with the Universtiy of Regina Cougars the past 32 seasons, including the last 19 as its head coach — wound up as UBC’s new head coach, tasked with leading a group which happens to include six fifth-year seniors who bring a combined 554 games — including 374 starts — of U SPORTS hardwood experience.
Theirs is a relationship that in so many ways is still in its infancy, yet it’s also one which when measured by any metric, appears to have hit the floor running with an undeniable purpose.
Over a preseason schedule comprised exclusively of OUA teams, the ‘Birds have gone a productive 4-1 while just beginning to delve into the myriad player combinations made available when five new players join a core of 10 returnees.
Yet before the team’s German tour, team camp and five preseason games, there was the Zoom call Taylor held with his new players on the heels of his hiring this past July. And what he said to them that day has seemingly served as the perfect opening chapter.
“I said it to my team when I first talked to them… I said ‘I am going to adjust to you,’” Taylor recalled earlier this month in the moments following his coaching debut in UBC’s 80-68 season opener Oct. 3 against the Queen’s Gaels at War Memorial. “They have gone through so much change.”
So much of it in fact that fifth-year seniors like Olivia Weekes, Sara Toneguzzi and Katie Hartman had all originally been recruited by the program’s three-time national title-winning head coach Deb Huband and her longtime assistant Carrie Watts from 2019 through 2021.
“I said that the last thing they needed was change, they just need stability and that was what I sold,” continued Taylor, 58. “During my interview, I said that I can adapt to anything. I can adapt to whatever they are running or doing.
“And they had a phenomenal team culture. All of them, when I talked to them, they all said across the board ‘Our strength is our team.’”
Cerys Merton, the fourth-year guard and defensive tempo setter who helped lead Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox Ravens to a B.C. AAAA championship title before coming to UBC in 2022, is clear when she speaks to the ways in which mutual respect can allay the fear of the unknown.
“From the day we met him he said ‘I am coming into your team and you guys already have such a tight-knit team, that it’s my job as coach to come into your environment and learn from you guys,’” explained Merton. “So I really feel it’s been a collaborative kind of learning process. We have adapted to his coaching style and he has adapted to all of his new players.”
THE EMPOWERMENT OF PAYING HOMAGE
Chat with Dave Taylor for any amount of time about his profession and before you know it, you’ve gained clear insights into the way his coaching philosophies have intersected with his humanistic ones.
For starters, he has found his own ways in which to pay homage to the coaches and mentors who have helped him develop into one of only three current U SPORTS women’s head basketball coaches to have accrued 500-plus overall career wins (513-176, .745). Saskatchewan’s Lisa Thomaidis (578-270, .682) and Dalhousie’s Tanya McKay 561-398, .585) are the two others.
Taylor assumed the head coaching role in Regina for the 2006-07 season, a time which history now reminds us was smack dab in the midst of the golden age of B.C. women’s university basketball.
Simon Fraser (five), UBC (three) and Victoria all won the right to hoist the Bronze Baby from 2002 through 2010, a streak which began one season after the 2000-01 Christine Stapleton-coached Cougars, with Taylor an assistant, topped Alberta to win the school’s only national title.
“I was a part of the stretch where I forget how many years in a row a B.C. team won,” Taylor offered with a chuckle. “I lost a national title to Simon Fraser (2009), and I lost a national title to UBC as an assistant coach (2004) and as a head coach (2008). So I had so much respect for what Deb (Huband) had done. That’s why it was important to me that one of the first calls I made, I talked to Deb about the job. You know, to get Deb’s approval really, because of what she has invested in this program. And I think I have been lucky in the sense that I think Deb’s really on board with this.”
Clearly none of Taylor’s strengths have been lost on Huband who was at UBC on Thursday, watching for herself as the Thunderbirds wrapped up the preseason with a decisive 80-51 win over the Waterloo Warriors.
Indeed, the diplomacy he has shown his players and empowerment it’s given them is evident.
“I think it shows his experience and maturity as a coach and his understanding of what a team might need… not feeling threatened or that he has to prove everything, but being certain in himself in his skill set and his abilities as a versatile, knowledgeable coach,” Huband said in the post game Thursday when asked for a first take. “So yeah, I think he doesn’t feel like he needs to re-invent the wheel, but he can adapt a little bit to the team he has and figure out the best way forward. I think a lot of coaches… they want to put their stamp on it, and they’re going to do it Day 1. I think he’s probably doing that as well, but more in how he approaches things with his calmness and his intelligence, and you know, his attention to detail. He doesn’t have anything to prove. He has already proven himself to be an outstanding coach in U SPORTS.”
To hear the reverence Taylor has for Huband, and the respect Huband offers back to Taylor carries a significance that is hard to fully state. According to the U Sports Hoops website, Huband sits seventh on the all-time overall games wins list for U SPORTS coaches with 538 wins while Taylor sits ninth with 514. That’s what the room sounds like when 1,052 wins start talking.
Coaching changes, for so many reason, are never easy for the student-athletes affected, yet there is no escaping what is an ingrained aspect of the profession and the environment of university sports.
For his part, Taylor is quick to thank his most recent predecessors — Erin McAleenan (2021-23) and Isabel Ormond (2023-25) — for creating what he credits as lasting impacts on the UBC program.
“I think Erin really set a defensive foundation, and I think that that’s bloomed,” said Taylor of McAleenan, who left after two seasons to guide her alma mater at University of New Brunswick.
“And I think Izzy came in and did a great job, not only on the offensive side but also really did a good job in terms of building the team culture,” he added of Ormond who before returning to coach her alma mater at McMaster, capped her two-season run at UBC with an 18-2 regular season, then took the ‘Birds to within a single victory of the program’s first national championship game appearance in 16 seasons.
Taylor’s time at UBC is just beginning, yet the program’s fan base and alums must surely find comfort in the assured ways in which he has already reached out to those who have come before him.
“We haven’t had the chance yet, but Dave has said that he wants to have Deb at some practices,” said Olivia Weekes, who was recruited under the Huband regime while the 5-foot-11 guard was still just an 11th grader starring Winnipeg’s Vincent Massey Collegiate. “It’s good to know that what has been built, like here at UBC, is respected and cherished to some extent by Dave… knowing that he is putting in the effort to be like that. He could be the next coach to win all of these championships for you.”
If that indeed is in the cards for the Thunderbirds, then a big part of the next chapter is going to be annexed with the philosophies Taylor gleaned over a generation-plus in Regina, a place which challenged the resourcefulness of the coaching staff, but ultimately rewarded them with ability to coach within a full spectrum of styles.
“At Regina we were so dependent on our local talent, so I could never recruit to a specific system, so we were always adapting,” he begins. “Years ago we were a very post-dominant team and then since Covid, we shot as many threes as anyone in the country.”
It’s all part-and-parcel of looking at challenges through a different lens, one which for Taylor often includes sports other than basketball.
“How I do a lot of stuff is based off of football, the concept of defensive coordinators, offensive coordinators, special teams,” Taylor says pointing to a model from his Cougars days when current men’s head coach Steve Burrows functioned as the defensive coordinator, a title which was later assumed by Michaela Kleisinger, this season serving as Regina’s interim head coach. “Just like an NFL head coach I’ll oversee everything, but letting people have certain focusses.”
This season, Taylor is taking things from a more positional standpoint with his first staff of UBC assistants, one which features an all-B.C. high school and university flavour.
“Jessica Hanson, our point guards can learn so much from her,” he says of the former UBC standout who right out of the gate averaged 23 minutes per game as a freshman in 2015-16 and who started 116 of her final 117 games under Huband before leaving for a professional career in Europe the past five seasons. “She knows more about the point guard position than I ever will.”
Alan Kristmanson, a holdover from Ormond’s staff, not only brings continuity but experience at every level of the game from high school through the highest levels of the world stage.
“He’s just got an incredible background,” Taylor says of the former Simon Fraser standout from the early 1980s who played for Canada at the 1988 Summer Olympic Games.
And in the front court, 6-foot-3 freshman forward Brooke Wagner out Sherwood Park (Alta.)-Strathcona High gets a chance to learn from 2025 UBC grad Jessica Clarke, the 6-foot-4 North Vancouver native who came home last season to finish her university career after starting out at Washington State.
“We knew we were going to be a pretty post-dominant team, so bringing in Jessica Clarke… you couldn’t ask for a better mentor for Brooke than Jess Clarke,” continued Taylor.
It hasn’t stopped there.
“I’m talking to Doug, the volleyball coach here,” he adds of Doug Reimer, the wildly successful head women’s coach who has won 11 U SPORTS national titles including 10 at UBC. “Early on I have been asking him about how much time he spends on fundamentals versus putting stuff in. You have to be a constant learner and that is the fun of coaching.”
SENIOR SERVICE
Back in 2008-09, Dave Taylor’s edition of the Regina Cougars featured, like his first UBC team, six fifth-year seniors.
With a roster that also included four fourth-year players, those Cougars were the very definition of a senior-laden team and the results showed during an 18-4 regular season which culminated with a 68-62 loss on its home court in the national championship game to Simon Fraser.
“We had one year where we had to split our Seniors Night into two nights because we couldn’t do them all on one night,” Taylor remembers of what was likely that very team.
Over the 29 previous seasons of women’s basketball rosters available via the gothunderbirds.ca website, beginning with Deb Huband’s first season in 1996-97, the second-most fifth-year seniors on any roster was four (Kaylyn Filewich, Ali Norris, Marcie Schlick, Gabriela Laguerta) during the Covid-cancelled 2020-21 campaign. There have been three fifth-year seniors on three other occasions, most famously the 2007-08 edition which featured the thrice-ringed trio of Erica McGuinness, Cait Haggarty and Julie Little.
So here we are with a truly Super Six.
Holdovers include guards Olivia Weekes, Sara Toneguzzi (Hamilton, Ont.) and Katie Hartman (Oakville, Ont.), and forward Sofia Bergman (North Vancouver-Seycove). Incoming transfers include forwards Jaeli Ibbetson (Kelowna Secondary, UBC Okanagan) and Callie Jolie-Coeur (Johnstown, Ont., McMaster).
As mentioned off the top, the six seniors have combined to appear in 554 career U SPORTS games, including 374 starts.
As well, if you look at the foursome of Ibbetson, Weekes, Jolie-Coure and Toneguzzi, and calculate their starts from the moment each came to define themselves as full-time, every-game starters, that quartet enters play Friday having collectively started 318 of their last 334 games. Jolie-Coure started 71 of her last 72 at McMaster; Ibbetson didn’t play last season, but in her four previous campaigns at UBC Okanagan started 89 of 90 dating back to her freshman season of 2019-20; since her second season, Toneguzzi has started 71 of her last 83; Weekes has started 87 of her last 89 over the last three seasons, and 100 of 110 overall at UBC.
The fourth-year contingent was sitting at four-deep heading into the season, led by one of the nation’s top returning players in power forward Mona Berlitz (Schrobenhausen, Germany) and the aforementioned guard Cerys Merton, but Berlitz, as well as fellow fourth-year forward Emilia Banmann (Winnipeg-St. Mary’s) have both been lost to season-ending knee injuries.
Merton and 5-foot-10 guard Stella LaGrange (Kelowna-OKM) both bring a toughness element to the group.
The freshman forward Wagner, and as well as third-year guards Jade Huynh (Burnaby Central), Maddy Billings (Vancouver-Kitsilano) and Kiarra Kelly (Toronto-Thornlea) are top candidates to round out the main rotation.
“…SOMETIMES IN LIFE, YOU GET LUCKY”
Dave Taylor makes no qualms about the fact that he loved his time in Regina.
The workaday rhythm he came to find just naturally seemed to beat in lockstep with his heart to the point that he wasn’t ever specifically looking to leave.
“In mid-June it wasn’t even a thought. I was up in Edmonton for a junior Cougars tournament, and then it kind of popped into my head the next week,” he said of the fact that while he knew the job was open, he had not yet found the time to stop for a second to purposefully ponder its possibilities.
“I literally applied the last day it was open, and I got offered the job on the July long weekend… kind of everything fell into place.”
Which is Taylor’s way of saying he was not going to leave unless everything was in place to continue a smooth flow of operations with the Regina program.
“It was a good time… where I felt good about where the program was in Regina. My assistant coach could be the interim coach. It’s a good team, it’s in a good space financially. It was one of those rare times as a coach where you can walk away and everyone is really appreciative of your career there, and just happy for you.”
And, it’s all coming at a stage of life where Taylor and his wife Jennifer are able to make the move work for both of their careers.
“Even things like the fact that my wife works remotely,” said Taylor. “This was also this was the only job I ever would have thought about because UBC is special. It just is. And this team is special. Being able to live out here, my kids (Anna, Hayden, and Reese) are university aged. The last two times this job was open I never even considered applying. Thirty-two years is a long time and being able to come into a program like this is reinvigorating. It’s going to re-energize my career. I am 58. I’m going to coach longer here, too.”
Regina, he stresses, will always be a special place, the place where he cut his teeth, learned his craft and made lifelong connections he knows he’ll never lose.
Yet he does say that “sometimes in life you get lucky.”
An example?
“Hey, I walk to work every day, 25 minutes,” he says with a smile. “And you know, I love Regina but I wasn’t walking to work and looking at the mountains and walking down to the ocean.”
Indeed, sometimes you do get lucky.
And if the new head coach of UBC women’s basketball feels that way, chances are, so does his team.
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