B.C. high school rugby commissioner Walter Van Halst speaks to the challenges which lay ahead for his and all other high school sports. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Other

05.20.20 edition: Varsity Letters-The Podcast talks B.C. high school rugby with commissioner Walt Van Halst

Welcome to another edition of Varsity Letters-The Podcast. This week, we speak with Walter Van Halst, the commissioner of the B.C. Secondary Schools Rugby Union, on the future of the sport within the provincial high school ranks.   B.C. high school rugby was coming off one of its most successful seasons ever in 2019 with […]

Zac Meinen (right) of the Abbotsford Christian Knights finished his high school basketball career with a 42-point performance. (Photo by Dan Kinvig property of UFV Athletics 2019. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Small-school stars! Meet Abby Christian’s Zach Meinen and the rest of the BCHSBBA’s 2019-20 Double- and Single-A all-stars

ABBOTSFORD — If you want to know just how good a point guard Abbotsford Christian’s Zach Meinen was over his senior year, first ask his basketball coach to tell you a story about how well Meinen played his second-favourite sport: Volleyball.“Zach’s had been an outside hitter his whole high school career,” begins Abby Christian head […]

Following championship careers at Burnaby South, the basketball recruiting road has brought Rebels' stars Jusuf Sehic (left) and Sasha Vujisic to Kamloops' Thompson Rivers WolfPack for the 2020-21 Canada West season. (Photos by Wilson Wong property of UBC Athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball University Men's Basketball

A northern migration: Why Burnaby South’s Vujisic and Sehic seem a perfect fit in their hoops reunion with Kamloops’ TRU WolfPack

BURNABY — Back in 2018, over a precious few weeks of March Madness, Jusuf Sehic and Sasha Vujisic wrote one heck of a first chapter together on the basketball court.It was a budding storyline, co-penned between a pair of Burnaby South Secondary stars, which seemed to cry out for more.After all, when was the last […]

Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls visited Vancouver as an NBA city during the Grizzlies short life here, yet MJ almost paid a private visit to a B.C. high school hoops powerhouse a back in 1990. (ESPN photo graphic)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

The Last Dance, Vancouver style! Thirty years later, the story behind Michael Jordan’s planned 1990 trip to Richmond High

RICHMOND — Cell phones had not yet gone mainstream, and the internet was about a year away from its official launch.The year was 1990, although that might not seem like so long ago to some, the world was still an innocent enough outpost that picking up the phone and making one call could still get […]

Bill Stebbings (third right) is flanked by former players (left to right) Eron Labadie, Bill Richards, Charles Hotel, David Hughes, Bob Hoy and John Christie at the school's Wall of Fame induction ceremony this past December. (Photo property of Seaquam Seahawks athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature High School Boys Basketball

Bill Stebbings 1949-2020: The architect of Seaquam Seahawks boys basketball always saw the big picture first

NORTH DELTA — He was a basketball coach who wanted the world for his players.And in the end, Bill Stebbings helped them find it by showing them that their commitment to the game was redeemable in later life in the form of wisdom and a deeper appreciation for the value of family and friends.On Tuesday, […]

Joe Enevoldson, coming off a 17-1 PacWest season with the Douglas College Royals, was last week named the new head coach of the Fraser Valley Cascades' men's team. (Photo by Howard Tsumura property of VarsityLetters.ca 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Vancouver College's Jason Soriano will run track and catch footballs this coming season for the UBC Thunderbirds. (Photo by Wilson Wong property of UBC athletics 2020. All Rights Reserved).
Feature High School University

Varsity Letters’ 15th annual B.C. Recruits list! Send us your name if you’re a university-bound student-athlete in our B.C. grad Class of 2020!

Hello B.C high school student-athletes, as well as your parents, and the entire community of coaches, athletic directors and administrators around our great province.It’s time to begin compiling the 14th annual Varsity Letters’ B.C. Recruits List, a project which had its genesis back in the spring of 2006 when I worked at The Province newspaper.Each […]

Enriched by a basketball heritage which not only includes the game's inventor James Naismith, but also the likes of former SFU Clan star Jay Triano (left) and the late Handsworth Royals' icon Quinn Keast, high school basketball players in the province of B.C. have plenty of inspiration with which to work on their games despite the challenges brought on by COVID-19. (Photos property of Simon Fraser Athletics and Blair.photo (Blair Shier) 2020. All Rights Reserved. Photo graphic created by Gabriel Lynn)
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B.C. coaches say “…basketball is going back to being about you and a hoop” How to summon your inner-Naismith in a time of social distancing

NORTH DELTA — What defines a self-made athlete?As the 2019-20 B.C. high school basketball season was coming to an end last March, just days ahead of a province-wide COVID-19 shutdown, it was certainly not a topic I spent much time pondering.Yet some two months later, I can say with great confidence that it has emerged […]

Garrett Rooker, a 6-foot-3 two-sport star at Clear Springs High, just outside of Houston, is headed north to join the UBC Thunderbirds as both a quarterback and guard-forward. (Photo provided by UBC football and Garrett Rooker)
Feature University Football University Men's Basketball

Garrett Rooker: How the UBC Thunderbirds found a Texas 6A-tier football/basketball standout in time for the 2020-21 season!

VANCOUVER — UBC reputation as one of the world’s great universities is certainly no secret to academia’s global community.On Friday, however, that same reputation not only earned the the school a top-flight entrant into its kinesiology program, but a blue-chip high school senior from Texas with the ability to be a difference maker both barking […]

First-year Simon Fraser Clan head coach Tina Andreana has her Clan softball team as the leaders of the GNAC pack when the campaign was halted due to the global pandemic. (Photo by Paul Yates property of Vancouver Sports Pictures 2020. All Rights Reserved)
Feature University Softball

Picked for last, but all alone in first place when COVID cancelled GNAC season, SFU Clan softball sees bright future in 2021 under coach Tina Andreana

BURNABY — Getting a second chance to continue making a great first impression is all Amanda Janes and the rest of her Simon Fraser Clan softball teammates could have hoped for.