This fall, Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford campus will see varsity sports on campus.
For the first time, Laurier Brantford will be showcasing two varsity teams of their own: men’s indoor soccer and men’s and women’s cross country.
In a joint effort with the Department of Athletics and Recreation, the city of Brantford and the YMCA, the Brantford Golden Hawks will finally have a gym they can call home.
The gym will be a public access YMCA gym that is only a five minute walk from campus and will also be used as the home gym for the Brantford Hawks. This crucial development is the major stepping stone in bringing varsity sports to Brantford.
Contrary to the Waterloo campus, Laurier Brantford’s athletics department is much smaller in scale, due to facility size and smaller student population.
Up until this academic year, Laurier Brantford campus has had three main channels of recreation: fitness based programming, training and sport based programs classified as intramurals and extramural.
Extramurals are a unique sporting opportunity that brings school teams together, manintains school spirit on both campuses and can compete against other universities and colleges at a recreational level while participating in the OCAA.
This extramural program is essentially how students at Laurier Brantford who want to participate in interuniversity sports are able to participate, since varsity athletics has never accessible.
“We’re extremely excited to finally have varsity sports at our Brantford campus,” said Megan Jacklin, the fitness and lifestyle coordinator at Laurier Brantford.
Since Laurier Waterloo already competes in OUA, Laurier Brantford campus is unable to and will have to compete in a different league under the OCAA.
Laurier Brantford is wasting no time to get things going. Cory Currie has been hired as cross country head and furthermore. cross country tryouts will begin in the first full week of classes.
The first meet will be September 17 at Fanshawe college and will kick off a new era in Laurier Brantford’s history.
Laurier Brantford hopes to use these two teams as a test period and if everything runs smoothly, the ultimate goal is to introduce more sports and to further grow the program.