HIGH ACHIEVERS: Sarah Besselink earns first university basketball head coaching job with Calgary Dinos

By Martin Cleary

Go West, young woman, go West.

And, modifying the 160-year-old quote attributed to American newspaper executive Horace Greeley to keep with the times, basketball coach Sarah Besselink is about to do just that.

Besselink, a pillar of performance with the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees women’s basketball program for the past 13 years as a player and then a coach, has become the ninth head coach of the University of Calgary Dinos women’s basketball team.

Later this month, Besselink, 31, and her husband Brody Maracle, a former University of Ottawa and Carleton University Ravens men’s basketball player, will journey West to experience basketball at yet another level.

“It was a bit of a shock in the best possible way,” Besselink, a Kingston, ON, native, said in a phone interview on Thursday about her first university head coaching position. “All of my hard work and dreams of becoming a head coach have come true. Oh my, I’m moving across the country.”

“The chance to work at the University of Calgary, a school with high academic and athletic standards, and be part of a competitive program was very enticing,” she said in a Calgary athletic department press release.

“I’m looking forward to continuing my coaching journey and learning from those around me. I believe there is an incredible foundation here and I am eager to get to work with this team.”

Besselink has been a stay-at-home young woman. She has moved only once before to Ottawa from Kingston in 2013 to study at the University of Ottawa, play six years of basketball and earn two bachelor degrees (human kinetics in 2018 and education in 2020).

In Kingston, Besselink was a standout player at Holy Cross Secondary School, which won the city and regional titles and an OFSAA girls’ AAA championship silver medal in 2012. She was heavily recruited by Canadian university coaches, but decided to play for Gee-Gees head coach Andy Sparks, who has been a long-time mentor for her.

She stretched her playing career to six years because she missed most of her second year with an ACL knee injury and surgery as well as a meniscus knee injury in her fifth season.

When she retired in 2019, she was the fourth-highest scorer in Gee-Gees history with 850 points in 92 OUA regular-season games. She ended her career on a positive note as the Gee-Gees won the bronze medal at the 2019 U Sports national championship tournament. Besselink also was a two-time OUA second team all-star in 2017 and 2019 and a member of the OUA all-rookie team in 2014. She was a U Sports academic all-Canadian for 2018-19.

Her introduction to university-level coaching came out of the blue.

Besselink accepted a one-year teaching assignment at Turnbull School during the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down all OUA sports for the 2020-21 academic year.

During that frustrating period of no games but plenty of workouts, Gee-Gees women’s assistant coach Rose-Anne Joly left her assistant coaching position to join the NBA Basketball School in Dubai. Sparks phoned Besselink and asked her if she would consider replacing Joly.

“I saw coaching as a combination of both of my passions – teaching and basketball,” she added. “I hadn’t put a lot of time into my teaching career and Ottawa was only offering a one-year coaching interim program. I decided to try it for one year and, if I didn’t like it, I could go back to teaching.”

As the 2021-22 season was approaching, Sparks retired and Joly returned to Ottawa and was hired as the full-time head coach, a position she continues to hold. Besselink had to reapply for her job and has been the full-time lead assistant coach for the last four seasons.

“One year later, I loved it and I was committed to it,” continued Besselink, who then started to think about becoming a head coach one day.

“Rose and I were figuring out our new roles. I did a lot of basketball stuff. Looking back, you think you know a lot, but I knew nothing. It prepared me to be a head coach.”

As a full-time paid lead assistant coach, Besselink was responsible for overseeing individual film and on-court sessions, preparing scouting reports and tactics, organizing and communicating schedules, supporting recruitment and contributing to alumni engagement and summer camp programming.

During her stint as the Gee-Gees’ lead assistant coach, which saw her help Ottawa win the OUA title and a U Sports national championship bronze medal in 2025, she explored the possibility of becoming a head coach.

She applied for several Canadian university women’s basketball head coaching positions in the past few years and learned a lot about the whole process, while not being successful.

“At the beginning, I wanted to see if I’d like full-time coaching and the lifestyle,” Besselink explained. “After my first year, I had a lot to learn. But I wanted to take it as far as I could go.

“After each year, jobs came up and I applied for them and got interviews. I learned a lot through the process and what schools were looking for. It made me realize my weaknesses, made me want me to build my portfolio to be a well-rounded coach and learn what the schools were looking for.”

Besselink knew the Calgary Dinos women’s head coaching position needed to be filled this spring as former long-time coach Damian Jennings was suddenly dismissed early in the 2024-25 season and replaced by interim head coach Jhony Verrone.

During a whirlwind day in Calgary, Besselink had an interview, attended various meetings and visited the campus.

“I felt quite prepared because I have had interview experience. I had a good feeling. I had good, positive vibes from them all day,” added Besselink, who returned to Calgary at the end of April to meet the players and look for accommodation.

Besselink is moving from one competitive and successful program in Ottawa to one of the top teams in the Prairie Division of the Canada West Conference. The Dinos placed third in their division in 2024-25 with a 16-4 record, were 1-1 in the playoffs after losing their quarterfinal and were ranked 10th nationally based on their conference record but eighth based on their overall record of 24-6.

“As much as I am prepared for the job, it will be a huge learning process,” said Besselink, who will lose three starters from the 2024-25 team to transfers (two) and graduation (one).

But Besselink does have head coaching experience as she has guided the Ontario girls’ U15 team for three years, winning two gold and one bronze medals at the Canadian championships in August. She is coaching the Ontario U15 team for this year’s nationals.