Juggling school with sports is a precarious occupation when you're a high-performance athlete.
Just ask Meryeta O'Dine, a snowboard cross specialist and provincial team member who could well emerge as a hometown favourite in the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
In the month of February, at the height of the competition schedule, O'Dine attended her Grade 10 classes at D.P. Todd secondary school maybe one day per week. The rest of the time she was on the road at ski resorts all over the province, carving out a reputation as the province's top-ranked midget-aged athlete in her sport.
As an athlete, she made major inroads, and her school work did not suffer.
For that she can thank Canadian Sport School Northern B.C. As one of the 13 students on track to complete the program in its first year, O'Dine has been a standout.
The sport school is open to students in Grades 10-12 enrolled at one of the five Prince George high schools. Students attend morning classes at their regular school, then go to the Northern Sport Centre at UNBC for afternoon classroom sessions and sport-specific physical training. Next year's class will expand to 22 students and with the exception of three graduating students, all who are eligible to re-apply, including O'Dine, have already done so.
"It's allowed me a lot more freedom with getting my homework done and not having to worry about it so much when you're coming back from competition," said the 16-year-old O'Dine.
"We only have to take four main classes [social studies, math, science and English] in school for two classes in the morning and then we go to the Sport Centre for about an hour of training and an hour of homework. They're always understanding about you staying back and getting your homework done. You can get tests emailed up to the university and bring them back to school."
Next year with Team B.C., O'Dine's travel schedule will be even more hectic with race events on either side of the continent. Her stepfather, Fern Thibault, said the sport school and the freedom it allows contributed to O'Dine's success in what was a breakout year.
"Just seeing the confidence it gives her to do her school work and perform at that level, it's been amazing to see the change in her," Thibault said. "She's happy to go to school and she knows she's going to get the support there to carry her on. She's getting more one-on-one teaching. She's gone a lot, and there's always someone there to see if you're getting behind or not."
Canadian Sport School also has campuses in Victoria, Vancouver and Kelowna. The program is subsidized by the Canadian Sport Institute and PacificSport's Victoria head office. The cost per student per year is $1,250, which PacificSport Northern B.C. president Anne Pousette rates as a bargain.
"The sport school has been a huge success," said Pousette. "It's a way for kids who are already in the system, struggling to do their best at school and do their best at sport, but are not necessarily in environments that help them do that. The sport school gives them the framework to maximize both pieces at basically the same cost to the school system and the same cost to those families."
Rob Lewis, an instructor at Prince George secondary school, is the academic teacher at the school. Former University of Calgary basketball player Brian Finness is the strength and conditioning coach. Students receive mental training from guest speakers on such topics as nutrition, financial planning or how to deal with the media. They also also have access to PacificSport Northern B.C.'s sport science staff and fitness training equipment. Classes are in session at the school Monday to Thursday and the class is split into two groups to work alternately with Finness on afternoons three days every week.
"Here in the North, a lot of our athletes are winter sport athletes so I get to work with them during the school year, which is their competitive season," said Finness. "It's not as much building the performance enhancement piece, it's more about injury prevention and maintenance.
"My role is really to work with the coaches and make sure we're getting the right stuff to do, but you don't want to give them too much because they're developing athletes and three of four years down the road they might get injured because of it."
PacificSport is opening a sport school this September in Fort St. John for 18 athletes. Most of that group will be selected from the 40 students in the North Peace region already training as high-performance athletes with PacificSport's IGNITE athlete development program.
