Get to Know: Jeff Powell

Published On: January 22, 2024

CSCM’s “Meet the Team” continues with an interview with our Executive Director, Jeff Powell. We told him it would be an informal conversation just getting to know him a bit better, not digging for embarrassing stories, but he willingly shared one with us.

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF?

Jeff: I was born and raised in Winnipeg. Mom’s a teacher, Dad’s an engineer. Grew up in St. Vital. I’m an only child and we had a Golden Retriever named Brandy. My memories are of a pretty happy childhood. Lots of sports, lots of time at the lake, fishing trips with my dad and grandpa.

AS A KID, WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE SPORT?

Jeff: Probably as a young kid, it was hockey. Then in the middle of high school, it was basketball. And I thought I was going to play University basketball but then I went to Japan for a year on an exchange and I came back and I wasn’t all that good at basketball anymore.

YOU ARE AN OLYMPIAN, REPRESENTING TEAM CANADA AS A ROWER. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

Jeff: Just on a whim, I tried rowing after seeing it in the ‘96 Olympics. It was me and probably 50 other university kids at the Winnipeg Rowing Club at 5:30 in the morning one day in the fall of ’96. I stuck with it because it’s just such a great group of people and a great social activity, not thinking it would go anywhere. And then four years later, I had some success and did a master’s degree at Western because that was a rowing hotbed at the time and I parlayed that into a four year career on the national team. It started out with me coming dead last in everything for about six months.

You want an embarrassing adulthood story? I had been last in everything for months, and so finally this national team coach takes pity on me and is going to come over and coach me for a little bit. So, we worked through this drill where we’re just sitting still and we place my oars at the beginning of the stroke. He gets me in the position he wants and he’s like, “okay, take a stroke from here.” But at that point one of my oars had sort of twisted over and as I start to pull, I started to do this slow barrel roll over. Partway through, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to save it. And I remember having the thought of, “okay, you’re going to go in, it’s not great, but at least act like you’ve done it before. Keep it together.” And so I hit the water, but it’s March in Victoria so the water is, I don’t know, five degrees, and it totally blasts all the air out of me. I come up and I’m panting like a dog as I crawl over to his boat and climb in like a drowned rat. And he looks at me and I look at him and I’ll always remember this. He said, “that didn’t go very well for you did it?” So that was my first experience with national team coaching.

(Image note – while Jeff talks about his career on the national team starting off with plenty of losses, he did find success with the team, as proven by the photo of him drinking out of the trophy at the Henley Royal Regatta, Grand Challenge Cup)

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE LOOKING AT SPORT FROM THE SIDE OF A PARENT OF ATHLETES, ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING YOUR HISTORY AS AN ELITE ATHLETE?

Jeff: I’m struck by the amount of formal practice versus informal play that kids do, even for very active kids, now as opposed to 30 years ago.

I think I would have been oblivious to any politics as a young athlete, although my sense is it’s gotten far greater. My wife played team handball for Canada, was an exceptional volleyball player, and she’s a Phys Ed. teacher. And I always think that between the two of us, we should be as able as anyone to navigate the youth sports system, and we have found it hard. Who to work with, who to trust, what the truth is… I have great sympathy for parents who are trying to navigate that through that because just by dumb luck, we have a set of experiences that should make us better able to navigate it and it was not straightforward at all.

I would also say, I think both my wife and I would say, and every parent would know this- watching your child do something that they enjoy and that is an expression of who they are, is probably one of the more joyful parts of parenting. You don’t always get to see your kids be who they are when they are fully being themselves. And in the case of both sport and dance, it’s given us an opportunity to see that in both our kids and I think we cherish that pretty highly.

DO YOU HAVE ANY HOBBIES? HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR FREE TIME?

Jeff: I have to be honest, because we’re empty nesters now I am feeling a little bit adrift with my free time. I’m trying to get back into things. Like I used to be super avid reader, which had gone by the wayside last few years. Hoping to be more regularly active rather than in fits and starts. I love reading. I love food. I love travel.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE MOMENT FROM THE PAST YEAR?

Jeff: More than a year ago, but we took we took a big family trip the summer of 2022 and it was incredible. It was the first family trip we took in eight years. We looked at the age and stage of life for our kids and we realized it was going to be the last opportunity for a big trip for the family for the foreseeable future. We did Iceland, England and Barcelona to the Basque Country. We saw some stuff that we had never seen done before. The girls were at an age where they could really appreciate it and remember it. It was a great time spent together. It’s a memory I cherish.

(Image note: this family photo was taken at a waterfall near Mosfellsbaer, Iceland)

WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU LOVE ABOUT YOUR JOB?

Jeff: This might sound hokey. One of the things I love about my job, about coaching, about parenting kids who are pursuing big things, is that from time to time you get to be in the room where somebody does something that they couldn’t do, or they didn’t know they could do, five minutes earlier. And it’s rarely when the big lights are on or at the Olympics. It’s in the gym or the lab or at practice or something. And for me, those are incredibly special moments. Those are experiences that I really value when I get to see them.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2024?

Jeff: In my job, the Olympic Games the Olympic and Paralympic Games. And personally, but I think it’s professional as well, is that I’m looking forward to seeing where and howwomen’s sport continues to grow.

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE PIECE OF ADVICE TO GIVE ATHLETES?

Jeff: To be great at your sport you’re going to have to spend hours and hours and hours and hours on the field and in the gym and in recovery, and all the rest of it. And in order to be able to do that in a healthy way, you probably have to enjoy your sport. Finding ways to love it and finding ways to keep it in perspective is probably a precursor for being able to put the kind of hours you need into it. Because if your sport sucks for you, then your life sucks and that’s not a recipe for success at all. Even for our younger daughter, we’ve been hyper conscious of environments. Is the team a good team, not in terms of skill and performance, but are they good teammates? What kind of environment does the coach set? And then I guess my argument would be in those kinds of environments kids can’t help but learn and improve. So seek out those environments.