PEI will play host to Junior Nationals and Canada Games in the next eight months
While swimming competitively and completing her Biology Degree at the University of New Brunswick, Tracy Stevenson admittedly didn’t know a career in sport would be a possibility. However, a move to Prince Edward Island, and an internship with ParaSport and Recreation PEI, put Stevenson on the path to a career in sports.
Stevenson began swimming in her hometown of Ormocto, New Brunswick, at the age of seven and played everything from soccer and field hockey to volleyball and badminton growing up. After junior high, Stevenson decided to take swimming more seriously and went on to swim for both UNB’s varsity team and New Brunswick at the 2001 Canada Games.
Despite her love for sports, Stevenson figured she’d spend her career “looking through a microscope” after graduating.
“My first job after graduating, I took a job in Fredericton as a junior microbiologist for a chemical engineering firm in Fredericton,” Stevenson said. “When that contract came up for renewal, I decided not to renew my contract and move to PEI.”
Still a recent grad, Stevenson took a student internship position as the program coordinator with ParaSport and Recreation PEI in 2003, and the rest is history.
“Once I started as a program coordinator, I absolutely loved it,” she said. “I love the environment; I love the people I work with. Our office is in the house of sport with all of the other provincial sport organizations in the same building. It was such a unique and fun environment. Then in 2006, the Executive Director retired, and I had the opportunity to apply and move into that position.”
Being involved in sports and recreation from a young age, Stevenson said she didn’t truly appreciate what sport and physical activity brought to her life until she was in university.
In her role as Executive Director of ParaSport and Recreation PEI, Stevenson is trying to help others learn the benefits of sport.
“I want others to experience what I experienced,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be in a competitive way; it could be coming out and meeting new people, working together to achieve a goal, setting personal goals, or trying new things.
“As an adult, I preach that to our members: come out, try something new or just come watch. You don’t even have to try it if you just want to. Come watch. I think hearing the success stories and having someone call me afterward to say, ‘Thank you for inviting me to that activity or to come to try that sport. I really enjoyed it. Or what else can I do? Or can I do more?’ That is what keeps me motivated in my job.”
With pandemic restrictions easing across the country and live events picking up, Stevenson and her team at ParaSport and Recreation PEI are gearing up to host the Junior National Championship next week and the 2023 Canada Games next February.
“I’m really excited. One of the highlights of my job – I would consider hosting events being one of the highlights. I absolutely love event hosting,” Stevenson said. “We have super group of volunteers that we pull together for events, and they do a phenomenal job at coordinating these national and international events. It’s exciting for us, too, because it’s an opportunity to highlight Wheelchair Basketball at a higher level.
“This is an opportunity for us to showcase the sport of wheelchair basketball at a higher level so that residents of PEI can come and see the sport, and see what it looks like. When people see it in person, it’s like, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize it could be that rough or it was that fast.’ It creates a lot of lot of buzz for sure in our province, and it’s a perfect opportunity to recruit people to our sport.”
Having participated in, and coached at, the Canada Games, Stevenson is looking forward to being a part of the Games as an organizer next year.
“I mean, what better way to promote our sport than in the Canada Games?” said Stevenson. “We’ve had teams that have gone to the Canada Games, I’ve never been involved with hosting one of our sports in the Canada Games – it has been a really cool experience up to this point.
“We have our sport committee, and then we have our venue team, and we are working together to make this competition happen at our venue. It’s been a neat experience, and I’m excited to be a part of it in 2023.”