Camosun Chargers men’s basketball student athlete Dylan Marsden recently had a commanding 32-point weekend, hitting his own personal career high. Marsden was also recently nominated for PACWEST Athlete of the Week; he’s proud of what he’s accomplished, both for himself and for Camosun.
“I mean, obviously, it’s every athlete’s dream to be nominated for things like this,” says Marsden, who is in his fourth year of the Sports Fitness and Leadership program, specializing in sport management. “You want your personal goals, but something like that makes me happy, and I’m honestly just happy we picked up two big wins last weekend. You know, classmates will come up and talk to me about the game or whatever, and it’s a lot of fun. Camosun is a more tight-knit school than a lot of people think, and it’s just so much fun playing for Camosun.”
Marsden didn’t want to stop at being just an athlete on the team, though—he’s also been active in various aspects of Chargers promotion. He says that helping to spread awareness of the team is one of his off-court goals.
“I try to be as involved in the Chargers as possible. I think the Chargers have a really good platform to bring students together through sport, so that’s been one of my goals with all this,” says Marsden. “I’ve been doing stuff like getting around in person and as a team, managing our Instagram account, and doing some behind-the-scenes things as well. We try to be as involved with students as we can; one of our biggest projects last year was to start this thing called ‘the blue revolution,’ which is basically a man in a blue morph suit that’s kind of like a mascot, but used to complement the mascot. A lot of our promotion is on Instagram; we call the morph suit man ‘Blue,’ and he has an account too.”
Marsden says that playing college basketball wasn’t always in the cards for him. He actually gave up on playing sports for a while after he finished high school.
“I was involved with sports growing up and throughout high school, but after school I kind of stopped playing. I tried recreational leagues and it wasn’t the same competitive nature that I wanted. I switched sports a few times and wanting that competition drove me back to playing, and ultimately I ended up at Camosun,” says Marsden. “Like [Chargers men’s basketball head coach Scot Cuachon] always says, ‘Wherever you go, you want to leave the previous place in a better situation than when you arrived.’ When I came here, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I was never a superstar player or anything but I knew that I could help the program, and that’s what drives me to keep going—the want to leave the program in a better place.”
Marsden says that although he’ll be leaving the team one day, he wants to stick around Camosun if he can. For him, being involved with the Chargers even after he’s finished school would be a dream come true. He says that Camosun has been a big turning point in his life and he wants to continue to give back.
“I want to be involved in the sports industry for sure, and I would truly love to be involved with the Chargers athletics and make a job out of my passion for the program. It’s something I’ve always thought about—if I could work in a staff position in the athletics department, that would be pretty cool,” says Marsden. “If not, though, somewhere in sports, for sure. I love Victoria and my goal is to work local with a sports team, but working with the Chargers would be great—they have honestly changed my life, and I’m so thankful I came back to school.”