![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/WBB_HC_J.Thiessen_Square.jpg\")
<\/a>Thiessen says that the lessons he has learned while pursuing his master\u2019s degrees have been valuable in his coaching (in 2016, he earned his first master\u2019s, in Coaching Studies, from the University of Victoria).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cIt\u2019s managing people,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s putting people in the right places to succeed. It\u2019s motivating; it\u2019s all those things.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWhen 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\u2014that\u2019s why they were there,\u201d he says. \u201cIn four years we went from zero to 100. I\u2019m very proud of that. We also won two championships.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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 \u201cfairly rigid,\u201d he says, and their style isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201c[Late American basketball player John Wooden] said that preparation breeds confidence,\u201d says Thiessen. \u201cHe was talking about basketball, but I believe the same is true for all facets of life. I\u2019m really big on that \u2014 being organized and planned. As long as you\u2019re doing your best, then you\u2019ve had a success.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Thiessen\u2014who was born in Manitoba\u2014is recently married and just returned from his honeymoon before starting coaching at Camosun. As far as his coaching strategies go, Thiessen says it\u2019s all about relationships.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s different,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had our first practice yesterday, and we went out for dinner as a big family. But that\u2019s just the first step… The quicker and the deeper you can establish relationships, the more you can understand what makes people tick. There\u2019s no one way to say, \u2018This is how you handle these types of situations.\u2019 It\u2019s going to take me some time. But I would say relationships are number one.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Thiessen says that he would like to see Camosun as \u201cthe destination college\u201d for young athletes. The benefits that the city and the community has are clear, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cWorking at PISE with the world-class trainers, I don\u2019t know why anybody would want to go anywhere else,\u201d he says. \u201cI hope we can win a pile of games here, and all the young athletes can see that.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The young athletes\u2014and others around campus\u2014will also see Thiessen\u2019s particularly majestic moustache, which he sometimes curls for special events; for those wondering, he does so without wax.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
\u201cSometimes if it\u2019s a wedding or something, I\u2019ll twist it up,\u201d he says, \u201cbut it\u2019s just au natural<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For new Camosun Chargers women\u2019s basketball coach Justin Thiessen\u2014who started a basketball academy in China before settling in Victoria this summer\u2014sport is not the only focus of being a coach. A teacher by trade, Thiessen says basketball and education go hand in hand.\u00a0 \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for basketball I wouldn\u2019t have a lot of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-august-28-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18016"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19333,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18016\/revisions\/19333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}