By Keith Lacey
Laurentian University?s athletic director Peter Hellstrom was beaming from ear to ear Wednesday when he introduced Mike Clarke as the new leader of the Lady Vees basketball team.
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Mike Clarke |
Clarke replaces John Campbell, who left to coach the men?s varsity program at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
For the past four years, Clarke was head coach of the Langara College program in Vancouver. Clarke guided the Lady Falcons to an overall record of 106-36, averaging 26 wins per season, including a 32-2 record in 1999-2000, when the team was the number one ranked team in Canadian women?s college basketball.
Clarke was named conference coach of the year in 2000 and he coached five All-Canadian players, including CCAA Player of the Year Angela Miller.
In all four years, Clarke?s teams qualified for nationals.
Clarke expects to have a busy summer. He has to meet the players and get ready for training camp in early September, as well as move his family from B.C.
Clarke said he know all about the Lady Vees sensational record of success and knows there are a lot of expectations in his rookie season as virtually every player is back from last year?s strong club.
?I feel really confident we can do some good things here,? said Clarke. ?We?ll have a lot of fun doing it and I think the future of this program is very bright.?
Hellstrom also confirmed Phil Parker is taking over the Aqua Vees program after four years as an assistant coach to the legendary Dr. Jeno Tihanyi, who announced his retirement after almost 30 years as head swim coach.
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Phil Parker |
Parker takes over from Tihanyi, who he called one of the best swimming coaches in the world.
Born and raised in Windsor, Parker came to Laurentian to study kinesiology and then pursued his masters of science in human development. Besides being an assistant varsity coach with Tihanyi for the past four years, Parker has worked with the Laurentian swim club for most of the past nine years.
Parker came highly recommended from Tihanyi and really no one else was considered for the job, said Hellstrom.
