The Vancouver B.C. native will be inducted in June 2023
When Jaimie Borisoff first got the call that he was being inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame, he needed to be convinced it wasn’t a prank call.
The three-time Paralympic medalist got the call from BC Sports Hall of Fame chair, Tom Mayenknecht, to inform him that he is part of the 2023 class, which will be inducted during a ceremony in June.
“It’s a really big honour. It was a cool phone call to receive,” Borisoff said. “You are kind of like, ‘Who’s calling me? What’s this about?’ and you kind of wonder, ‘Is this a prank?’
“Tom had to give his information and convince me it was a real call. He was like, ‘You were nominated, you were selected, and you’re being inducted, so welcome aboard.’ It was just a total surprise and an honour to get that call.”
The Vancouver, B.C. native, won gold with Team Canada at the Paralympics in 2000 and 2004. He added a silver medal at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
At the IWBF World Championships, Borisoff helped Canada win gold in 2006 and a pair of bronze medals in 1998 and 2002.
“The first Paralympics, Sydney, that’s when we finally broke through,” Borisoff said of his favourite wheelchair basketball memory. “I think we were disappointed we didn’t do better in 1998 at the World Championships when we lost in the semifinals. We were kind of young and considered up-and-coming—maybe the team to beat, but we didn’t quite do it. Then we put it all together in a very complete, I think, dominating fashion in 2000.”
Borisoff credited coaches Tim Frick, Joe Higgins and Mike Frogley for his success in wheelchair basketball—a career that spanned 15 years.
“I was a 20-year-old by the time I started playing, and it just so happened we had a guy named Tim Frick running the program at Douglas College. Joe Higgins moved out here and ended up coaching the National Team. He started this world-class program locally to get young athletes involved. All we had to do was show up. I was lucky to have that group,” Borisoff said. “Then the athletes that we had—my career crossed over with the Vancouver Cable Cars, which included National Team athletes such as Murray Brown and Chris Samis, that were class 1.5, and I was learning from them.
“We had a nucleus of competitive men and women, and the goal was to be elite. I was in the right place at the right time, pretty lucky.”
Borisoff is now the director of the MAKE+ Applied Research Team at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the development of technology to help assist people with disabilities.
“I’ve been doing assistive technology research and development,” Borisoff explained. “A lot of wheelchair design. Basically, two themes: one is around wheelchairs and wheeled mobility devices, and the other theme is around exercise and adapted exercise machines.”