Local athletes stand up among those counted at Acadia

March 28, I attended the annual Fred G. Kelly Athletic Awards banquet at Acadia - always a highlight for me for a number of reasons.

I enjoy getting the chance to see varsity athletes all dressed up, even if many of them don’t look to be nearly as comfortable as they are in their Acadia uniforms.

I don’t think it’s my imagination, but Acadia has had more to celebrate these past few years: conference titles in football, hockey and men’s basketball; a runner-up finish in the country for the men’s basketball team this past season.

Add to that an increasingly large number of academic All-Canadians – 60 in 2006/ 2007, representing more than 25 per cent of the entire complement of Acadia athletes.

If I was struck by one thing at this year’s banquet, it was the proportionately high number of local athletes among the major and team award winners.

Looking down the list , I noted no fewer than 14 Nova Scotians - and seven Valley residents, including Becky Mutch, born in Pictou County but whose parents now live in Kentville; and Felipe Moura, who took his Grade 12 at Horton.

Mutch was Acadia’s Female Athlete of the Year for 2007/ 2008 and women’s basketball teammate Emma Duinker of Cambridge was the top First-Year Female Athlete.

Moura, who calls Brazil home, was a co-Rookie of the Year in men’s soccer, a team that, along with women’s soccer, certainly has its fair share of local student-athletes.

Other Valley athletes among the team award winners included Jennifer Bishop of New Minas, top defensive player in women’s basketball; Victoria Rombaut of Nicholsville, rookie of the year in women’s rugby; Kyla Gillis of Wolfville, most improved player in women’s rugby; and Bethany Kelloway of Kentville, MVP in women’s cross-country.

This says two things: one, there are plenty of talented athletes in our local area; and, two, Acadia is doing a better job of identifying and recruiting them.

Reflection of the local calibre

The number of local athletes on Acadia’s men’s and women’s varsity soccer teams is a reflection of the calibre of soccer in our area, and that varsity coaches Dara Ramirez and Findlay MacRae are heavily involved with Valley youth.

The emergence of high school football locally (by this fall, there will be teams at four Valley high schools) gives Acadia another sport to potentially recruit from, and coaches Jeff Cummins and Josh Lambert appear willing.

We probably won’t ever see the day when entire Acadia teams are made up of Valley athletes, but it’s refreshing for me, as a local sports journalist and an Acadia alumnus, to have more local athletes to write about.

I can’t leave Acadia without a few words about Achuil Lual, one of the finest young men to have attended Acadia in my memory. Lual’s impact on the campus over the past four years was evident Friday when, in addition to his team awards, he was co-winner of the Male Axe Citizen Award as well as a recipient of a new Athlete Leadership award inaugurated by the Acadia Students’ Union.

It would probably take me a while to recall the last Acadia athlete I enjoyed watching play his sport more Ach Lual: not only a talented basketball player, but an outstanding team player who leads vocally and by example. I invite basketball fans to tell me the last time they saw someone 6’8” on the front end of a full-court press.

It hardly seems like yesterday I was saying many of the same things about Wolfville native (and 2007 Acadia graduate) Jordan Sheriko. It’s no coincidence: Sheriko and Lual appear to possess many of the same qualities that not only make them top athletes and citizens, but also fine people.