Three coaches made full-time

Queen’s Athletics and Recreation has announced three of their varsity coaches will have their contracts upgraded to full-time status, which means they will now be solely responsible for coaching their teams instead of having to balance coaching work with other departmental responsibilities.

Football’s Head Coach Pat Sheahan and Defensive Coordinator Pat Tracey were the first two full-time coaches to be announced on July 16, and women’s volleyball head coach Joely Christian was made full-time on July 18.

The funding for Sheahan and Tracey’s new roles came from the department, and Christian’s new role is funded by the Coaches Association of Ontario - Quest for Gold Coach Wage Subsidy Grant program.

Director of Athletics and Recreation Leslie Dal Cin said this is a step toward ensuring Queen’s is competitive throughout the province and country.

“It’s definitely a much-needed step in the right direction in terms of providing much-needed leadership to our teams and reducing the amount of administrative work our coaches have to do,” she said.

Dal Cin said the move brings Queen’s closer to the model envisioned in last year’s athletics review.

“It’s in keeping with the recommendations put forth in the review,” she said, adding that she wants to add two more full-time coaches this season. She declined to comment on which coaches those might be.

Dal Cin identified the department’s priority sports as basketball, soccer, volleyball, hockey and football and said she eventually wants to have full-time coaches in each of those programs.

Sheahan said he was pleased to see the University emphasize full-time coaching.

“The University is saying that full-time coaching is important,” he said. “It’s a great philosophical step.”

However, Sheahan said he doesn’t think it will make too much difference in his day-to-day work, as he’d previously been the coordinator of alumni relations in addition to the head football coach, and there’s a lot of crossover between the two jobs.

“The list of duties I received was pretty close to what I had been doing previously,” he said.

Sheahan said the bigger announcement was that Tracey was being made full-time, as his outside administrative duties had been less related to football.

“I think there’s going to be a significant change in Pat Tracey’s role,” he said. “This means that all of both his and my efforts will be solely for the good of the football program.”