EAST VANCOUVER — If you’ve ever ventured into a gymnasium on the opening night of the B.C. high school basketball season — as a player, coach or spectator — you can attest to the fact that there is a feeling in the air as palpably uplifting as the one you feel on its final day.Sure, […]
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VL Podcast 11.25.20: Canadian coaching great Allison McNeill reflects on a hoops life with stops at Oregon, Semiahmoo, Laurentian, SFU and more!
This week, the Varsity Letters podcast welcomes a giant in Canadian basketball circles. Allison McNeill has touched the stars at every level at which she has played or coached, and today we cover some of the facets of her basketball life that don’t get as much attention! But first, we will talk with Coach […]
Climbing Jacob’s Ladder! VC Fighting Irish big man Jacob Holt stokes Santa Clara’s gilded B.C. tradition! Broncos get another one of our very best!
VANCOUVER — Jacob Holt admits he was originally leaning towards playing his university basketball in Canada.One day over this past summer, however, Vancouver College’s then-rising 6-foot-9 senior forward decided to test the waters with a highlight tape he’d put together all by himself.“I probably got 40 calls… it was surreal,” the affable Holt recounted Wednesday. […]
The VL Podcast welcomes Bo Palmer: Simon Fraser’s record-setting running back looks back on Shrum Bowl and the school’s early days in the NCAA!
BURNABY — It’s Wednesday and time to wrap up our two-part series of Shrum Bowl memories by chatting with Simon Fraser University running back Bo Palmer. A man of many talents, Palmer not only left his mark on the NCAA-era of football at SFU, he enjoyed a little-known career as a child actor. Originally a […]
The VL Podcast welcomes Billy Greene: The former UBC quarterback reflects on Shrum Bowl 2010, Holy Cross and Hec Crighton award!
Welcome back to Varsity Letters – The Podcast. Earlier this week, we let you — our loyal listening audience — know all about our themed, two-part discussion with a pair of past B.C. football greats, who each happened to have played in the last contested Shrum Bowl… way back in 2010! My, how a decade […]
Makenna Jacklin: She’s not just a post player! OKM’s 6-foot-1 star works to extend game beyond arc ahead of NCAA D-1 career with Idaho Vandals
LANGLEY — If Makenna Jacklin has her druthers, the trajectory of her NCAA Div. 1 basketball career is going to follow a script similar to the one she so dramatically penned en route to helping her Okanagan Mission Huskies beat East Vancouver’s Britannia Bruins in the championship final of last December’s Tsumura Basketball Invitational at […]
A football team’s lifting experience: Why the culture of Simon Fraser’s Lift-a-Thon is worth its weight in gold!
BURNABY — The Simon Fraser football team has already shown how adept it is at carrying the weight of disappointment that comes with a COVID-19-cancelled college football season.Now, over the course of a five-day run beginning Monday, the NCAA’s lone non-U.S. team will be demonstrating the best ways in which they have collectively lifted each […]
VL Podcast series debuts Monday: UBC’s Billy Greene, SFU’s Bo Palmer on Shrum Bowl’s 10-year absence and their own lives in and out of football!
LANGLEY — Plans for the resumption of the best football rivalry game in the province of B.C. were not actively underway when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March.Put it all together, and the fall of 2020 marks the 10th straight season that the Shrum Bowl, that formerly annual crosstown clash between Simon Fraser and UBC, […]
Logan Mathers: How the Fraser Valley Cascades’ big-ticket soccer recruit learned what it means to truly stand tall
ABBOTSFORD — Logan Mathers has always been the tallest kid in the park.And although the 6-foot-6 goalkeeper ultimately reached his lofty height without one of those sudden spurts of verticality, the latest recruit of the Fraser Valley Cascades soccer team has never forgotten about the day he experienced his greatest growth.“In the moment it hurt,” […]
Simon Fraser’s Bernd Dittrich: A decade-plus after the iconic quarterback’s passing, a former teammate pays homage to his remarkable spirit and courage
ABBOTSFORD — Mathis Baumbach remembers how he never felt like a stranger in the summer of 2008, even though he had flown halfway around the world from Germany to join his new teammates on the Simon Fraser University football team.And all of that was due to the presence of one of the most iconic athletes […]