The only director the Louis-Riel sports-études program has ever known is retiring

By Dan Plouffe

After more than 20 years of slogging, Ken Levesque had finally earned a corner office in the shiny new wing at Louis-Riel high school. He didn’t last there very long though. Soon enough he was back in his less-sparkly long-time home, in a part of Louis-Riel that was going to be shut down, until a wave of sports-mad students registered at once and thrust it back into service.

According to Levesque’s version of the story, the sports-études coordinator’s space was needed in the main office for the new vice-principal who was hired to manage the extra students.

“Not that I disliked it over there, but I like when I’m closer to the action here,” Levesque explains from his old digs, next door to the sports-études coaches’ office, half way between the gymnasium and the sports dome, and down the hall from the Louis logistics centre (the equipment room and the shuttle buses).

“That’s a big part of my job, so that’s another reason why I wanted to go back to the old wing,” he adds.

Now, ask Joé Fournier why his colleague of two decades moved back and he’ll say it’s because Levesque needed to cover more distance to keep up his fitness.

“I would love if we could have put a GPS on Ken to measure all the steps that he took from his office, to the principal’s office, to talk about this new idea and to explain what it can bring to the program,” smiles the Louis-Riel soccer academy director, who believes Levesque would have made a great entrepreneur in another life.

The above photo is probably the only time you’ll ever see Ken Levesque with his feet kicked up. That’s because Friday, Jan. 26 is officially the final day of Levesque’s 30-year teaching career.

He’s spent the last 20 as head of sports-études program at Louis-Riel, an initiative that allows students to pursue high-level athletic training during school hours as part of adapted physical education classes.

Sports-études transformed the once-underpopulated French public school in Gloucester into a wildly popular home for active students. Over 500 high school student-athletes are registered in a dozen sports-études streams this year, and another 400 take part in the exploratory sports program for Grade 7-8 students – together representing more than three-quarters of the student population.

“Ken is so passionate about the program,” Fournier underlines. “He was very forward-thinking and he was always thinking about ways the program can improve.”

As sports-études took off, Levesque could have easily sat back and said mission accomplished, Fournier notes, but he was always hungry to do more. And when there was a problem, he wouldn’t waste any time jumping into action.

When sports-études began in 2005, the school quickly recognized it would need its own shuttle buses to achieve its ambitions. But they also needed someone to drive the bus, so Levesque and a few other teacher-coaches went and got their licences.

Nowadays, “the bus schedule is very hectic and very busy,” notes Levesque, whose job includes a pile of time planning it all out.

The range of groups participating in sports at many sites is a sign of the program’s success. Free transportation is one element that draws people to sports-études, along with top-notch coaching and facilities, and a supportive environment that provides flexibility for student-athletes to pursue sport at a high level, Levesque highlights, though he says the most fundamental attraction is more simple.

“I think people learned that an active student will do well academically,” states Levesque, explaining that a major concern they battled initially was that participants would spend too much time playing and not enough studying.

“We had staff, we had teachers that said, ‘Oh, this will never work.’ We had parents that said this will never work. Other schools said this will never work. But when they saw the success of our students – the healthy life they were living, how well they were doing in school, and the post-secondary opportunities they were getting – well, it just grew and grew and grew.”

As much as he and others believed in the sports-études concept, Levesque says he still couldn’t have imagined the program would grow to the level it has.

Sports-études has outgrown its own massive sports dome – home to North America’s only 400-metre indoor track, as well as a regulation soccer pitch and basketball court – so they use the Gloucester Superdome down the hill most of the day too.

“When we started in 2005, how many sports schools were there in Ottawa? And how many are there today?” asks Levesque, who takes pride in seeing the rise of specialized school sports programs in the region. “If other boards and other schools that are kind of our competition are doing the same thing as we’re doing, I think that’s just a sign of our own success.”

Most of the teacher-coaches in the sports-études program were high-level athletes themselves, and there is most definitely a competitiveness that fuels their excellence, Levesque indicates. That may cause them to butt heads sometimes as well, but he says conflicts are easier to manage when work colleagues are friends too.

“I always say it’s the best team that could be assembled,” Levesque underlines. “Everyone has their own identity, and everyone brings something different to the program and to the team, and everyone wants to do what’s best for their sports, but they all are team players and we all share the same goal to offer the best program possible for our students. It’s just the best group that someone could work with.”

Retirement plan includes … more sports.

If colleagues are looking for Levesque, they certainly won’t find him relaxing in a La-Z-Boy. In fact, they’ll probably see him at work more days than not.

Levesque will serve as a program consultant for the rest of the school year, which may allow him to tackle some ideas that couldn’t fit in while he managed day-to-day operations. Those will fall to interim sports-études coordinator Dan Sauvé, Louis-Riel’s hockey program director, with a permanent hire expected in the fall. Levesque also plans to continue leading the school’s ski team, and he’ll help run the Franco-Ontario hockey tournament in April.

“I haven’t slept very well in a couple of weeks,” Levesque admits. “It’s kind of nerve wracking. I’ve been doing this same job for over 20 years, so it’s kind of weird to not know exactly what I’ll be doing in a few weeks from now. It’s exciting, but a little overwhelming as well.

“It’s hard to stop doing something you love from one day to another.”

When the transition into retirement advances a bit further, Levesque will follow his two boys’ pursuits – his older son is a second-year University of Ottawa engineering student and his younger son is now in the sports-études golf program after previously playing provincial-level soccer.

Levesque will continue running his summertime special events business that assembling stages and scaffolding, he’s got home renovations in mind, and he’ll do plenty of fishing, skiing, golf, tennis, hockey and baseball.

“I can’t sit down for five minutes,” Levesque signals. “I’m only 54 years old, I still have a lot of energy. I’m not going to stay at home every day doing nothing, that’s for sure.”

And how will Levesque spend his first official day of retirement on Monday? Well, he’ll be back at Louis-Riel. They need someone to drive the shuttle bus. He gets to start a little later than usual at least.

“What I think I’ll do is I’ll set my alarm for 8:45, the minute school starts, and I’ll listen to O Canada from beside my bed,” Levesque smiles. “And then I’ll go walk my dog with the other retirees on my street.”