For new Camosun Chargers women’s basketball coach Justin Thiessen—who started a basketball academy in China before settling in Victoria this summer—sport is not the only focus of being a coach. A teacher by trade, Thiessen says basketball and education go hand in hand.
“If it wasn’t for basketball I wouldn’t have a lot of the things I have today,” says Thiessen. “I’m working on my second master’s degree [in Business Administration from California-based distance education institution University of the People] right now, but basketball is always the driving force behind me. When I was younger, I wasn’t too worried about studying and my education, but as time went on, it opened more doors for me.”
Thiessen says that the lessons he has learned while pursuing his master’s degrees have been valuable in his coaching (in 2016, he earned his first master’s, in Coaching Studies, from the University of Victoria).
“It’s managing people,” he says. “It’s putting people in the right places to succeed. It’s motivating; it’s all those things.”
Thiessen says that when he first arrived at the high school he taught at in China, there was a zero-percent graduation rate for basketball players. It’s a tremendously difficult program, says Thiessen, because they are learning the same things players over here are, but the program is in English, which is their second language. They practiced five days a week; by the time Thiessen left, the graduation rate was 100 percent, he says.
“When I took over as head coach and started the academy program, I really just wanted to focus and make sure that these boys were getting their Dogwood diplomas—that’s why they were there,” he says. “In four years we went from zero to 100. I’m very proud of that. We also won two championships.”
Thiessen says that there are always opportunities to learn. While he did learn many things from coaches around the world while establishing the academy in China, Chinese coaches are “fairly rigid,” he says, and their style isn’t really something he brought back to Camosun with him. Thiessen says that planning and organization are the key ingredients to success in an atmosphere that requires a student to balance sport and academics.
“[Late American basketball player John Wooden] said that preparation breeds confidence,” says Thiessen. “He was talking about basketball, but I believe the same is true for all facets of life. I’m really big on that — being organized and planned. As long as you’re doing your best, then you’ve had a success.”
Thiessen—who was born in Manitoba—is recently married and just returned from his honeymoon before starting coaching at Camosun. As far as his coaching strategies go, Thiessen says it’s all about relationships.
“Everybody’s different,” he says. “We had our first practice yesterday, and we went out for dinner as a big family. But that’s just the first step… The quicker and the deeper you can establish relationships, the more you can understand what makes people tick. There’s no one way to say, ‘This is how you handle these types of situations.’ It’s going to take me some time. But I would say relationships are number one.”
Thiessen says that he would like to see Camosun as “the destination college” for young athletes. The benefits that the city and the community has are clear, he says.
“Working at PISE with the world-class trainers, I don’t know why anybody would want to go anywhere else,” he says. “I hope we can win a pile of games here, and all the young athletes can see that.”
The young athletes—and others around campus—will also see Thiessen’s particularly majestic moustache, which he sometimes curls for special events; for those wondering, he does so without wax.
“Sometimes if it’s a wedding or something, I’ll twist it up,” he says, “but it’s just au natural.”