Former Cougars basketball coach Christine Stapleton headed for U of R Hall of Fame
Apr. 9, 2010 - Regina Leader-Post
By Ian Hamilton
Christine Stapleton was a relative unknown in 1993 when she was hired to be head coach of the University of Regina Cougars women's basketball team.
After tonight, she'll forever be known as a U of R Hall of Famer.
Stapleton and Dr. Ralph Nilson are to be inducted into the school's Sports Hall of Fame during the annual athletics awards night. The event is to begin at 7 p.m., in the University Theatre.
"I never imagined having this type of honour," Stapleton said Thursday from Waterloo, Ont., where she's now employed as the associate director of athletics at the University of Waterloo. "For the university and the (selection) committee to recognize what we started in '93 when they took a chance on me is an amazing honour."
Stapleton, a 42-year-old product of Goderich, Ont., won't be attending the event because her second child is due any day. She and her husband, Chuck McMahon, also have a two-year-old daughter named Moira.
Stapleton was hired by the U of R -- by Nilson, more specifically -- shortly after she had completed a stellar five-season playing career at Laurentian University. She had helped the Lady Vees win back-to-back national titles in 1990 and '91, but hadn't been a head coach before the U of R came calling.
"They took a chance on me and I took a chance on them," Stapleton said. "I didn't know anybody in Saskatchewan. I can remember getting on the highway in a U-Haul truck and not knowing where I was going. I didn't even have a map. I just got on the Trans-Canada and headed for Regina."
When she arrived, she found a team that had won just five games over its previous two seasons. By the end of her nine seasons in Regina, the Cougars had won 101 regular-season games, three conference titles and a national championship in 2001. Stapleton was named the CIAU coach-of-the-year in 1997.
"She took the program from a place that it had been but hadn't been for some time -- in a down phase -- and created a brand for women's basketball in this community that I think is really unique," said U of R director of athletics Dick White.
"We sold out the CIS women's basketball championship tournament last year (at the U of R's Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport) three days in a row. Some of that is a result of the brand Christine created."
For Stapleton, the brand was simply a byproduct of creating a quality program.
"In '93, I had to give a presentation on my philosophy, my vision of what I wanted the program to be," she recalled. "I wanted it to be competitive. I wanted the athletes involved, and everyone who came to watch us, to have fun so they would be engaged. I think we accomplished that.
"The girls were engaged and that's proven by the fact that they're still connected as teammates. We engaged the fans, too. We went from having 50 fans at games -- including families and boyfriends -- to, the last year I was there, selling out every game (at the Physical Activity Centre)."
Stapleton also wanted to have her players graduate, which they did. As well, she wanted the program to be comprised primarily of Saskatchewan-born players, which it was.
"I'm really proud that I was part of that program," said Stapleton, who left the Cougars in 2002 to accept a job with Canada Basketball. "I'm also proud that I was able to take the program that others had started, take it in the '90s, expand it and get it to where we got it to."
Hall of Fame inductions aren't anything new for Stapleton. She was installed in Laurentian's hall in 2005 and also was inducted into the U of R hall in '06 as part of the Cougars team that won the 2001 national title.
Nilson is being honoured because, as dean of the faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies from 1992 to 2002, he helped expand the U of R's athletics program from six teams to 16.