HIGH ACHIEVERS: CAN Fund honours paddling’s L.A. Schmidt, soccer’s Carol Anne Chenard with BE EPIC awards

By Martin Cleary

At age 13, L.A. (Leslie Ann) Schmidt joined her friends and boldly stepped into her teenagehood with a big boom.

And her determination and advocacy have continued throughout her adult years. If you’re counting, that would be 44 years of true dedication to all aspects of canoe and kayak paddling on and off the water.

If it wasn’t for her active and athletic group of friends, Schmidt may have missed the boat on entering the world of paddling. Once she tested the waters of war canoe and crew boat racing at the Rideau Canoe Club and got her balance, she was sold on the idea of first being a kayaker and then a canoeist.

Over the past six decades, the Dunrobin, ON., resident has been a paddler, a coach, a volunteer club and national administrator, a champion for women’s, para and Special Olympics canoeing and the founder of a club with her husband Bevin.

Schmidt thought she had touched all the bases, but then she learned she’s off to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. While she won’t be racing for Team Canada, she will represent Canoe Kayak Canada at her first-ever Olympics in a volunteer role to broaden the Games’ experience for the paddlers’ parents.

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Her career achievements were recognized more than four years ago, when she and Bevin were awarded the 2019 Mayor’s Cup for their contributions to local sport at the Ottawa Sports Awards dinner in 2020.

The spotlight again fell on L.A. Schmidt at the recent BE EPIC Awards, which were staged in Toronto. Schmidt was honoured by CAN Fund as one of 12 “women of influence … remarkable women who are inspiring and transforming lives within their respective communities.”

CAN Fund, which has been a driving fundraising force for 20 years to assist Canada’s Olympic athletes, also described the dozen recipients this way: “Transformational leaders, who are catalyst for positive change and the empowerment of others; women who embraced the superpowers of authenticity, vulnerability and community; (and) visionaries that embody the values of passion, hard work and resilience.”

The other BE EPIC Awards went to Ottawa’s Carol Anne Chenard (soccer), Jayna Hefford, Vera Milan Gervais, Kris Reyes, Heather Cartwright, Lue Mahaffey, Fabiana Bacchini, Marissa Teeter, Sheri Cappa, Allison Lang and Tara Mowat.

Chenard was a distinguished soccer referee at two FIFA Women’s World Cups, but missed her third in 2019, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before the start of the competition. While she has retired as an on-field referee, she remains in the game as an off-site video assistant referee, a role she served at the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Chenard was inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame this past fall.

“It was quite an honour,” Schmidt said in a phone interview this week about receiving a BE EPIC Award. “It was lovely to meet them all and establish a group on the side to foster growth in young women.”

Schmidt certainly knows what the Canadian Athletes Now Fund means to the country’s high-performance athletes, as her children Hannah and Jared have both received money to support their athletic pursuits of ski cross.

Schmidt has a deep and rewarding paddling resume, but there are three areas that mean the most to her.

For many years, she campaigned nationally and internationally for the inclusion of women’s canoe racing into the world championships and the Summer Olympics. If it was defeated at one level, she made sure it would be on the agenda the next time around. Women’s canoe racing finally entered the Olympics at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

She also is particularly proud of supporting and advocating for para canoe and Special Olympics paddling. She’s pushing hard to bring those two paddling disciplines into their respective Paralympic Games and World Summer Games.

As parents of two young children in 2001 and getting tired of the long drive to the Rideau Canoe Club, L.A. and Bevin decided to create the Ottawa River Canoe Club, which is entering its 23rd year. As the club grew in Dunrobin, it welcomed all forms of paddling, including para paddling and the Paddle All Program for Special Olympic athletes.

Brianna Hennessy learned about para canoeing from scratch at the club and her dedicated training has allowed her to become one of the best in the world in adaptive canoe and kayak boats.

Schmidt, who isn’t involved in the operation of the club, is the Special Olympics coach. Her Special Olympics team attended last summer’s Canadian sprint canoe championships in Dartmouth, N.S. and placed fourth on the Paddle All points list out of 11 clubs.

“When you look back, paddling … saved my life because it’s healthy and great,” L.A. Schmidt said. “Sport gave me an opportunity to do things I wouldn’t normally do. It’s a passion that got me through my adolescent years.”

And that fascinating passion has stuck with Schmidt through her adulthood.

About 40 years ago, Schmidt started her coaching career, spending four years as head coach at Rideau and working with Ontario team head coach Graham Barton. She also was named to the Canadian team for the 1991 world junior canoe championships, which saw Rideau’s Kenna Robins reach two kayak finals.

“(It was a) great experience and made me realize that I wanted to stay at the club level and develop paddlers of all levels and abilities,” she wrote in a 2018 story titled “Paddling literally saved my life.”

In the 1990s, Schmidt continued to push for the advancement of women’s canoe racing as well as training with the Rideau masters group and attending a Dragon boat world championships.

Her volunteer time with Canoe Kayak Canada has seen her serve as commodore in 2020, sit on the board of directors as the sprint representative and be the domestic development committee chair. A past commodore at her own Ottawa River club, Schmidt also was a member of the Canoe Kayak Ontario board.

In the final paragraph of her story, Schmidt explained how grateful she was for all that has been accomplished:

“I would like to say thank you for all the great times in this amazing paddling community/family. I love all that we have done and cannot believe what we all can achieve by working together and tirelessly for great things like, women’s canoe, para paddling and Special Olympics paddling. These are initiatives that have been very near and dear to my heart. Super thankful that so many other people agreed and Canada led the way.”