Keith Hansen is leaving his post as Red Deer College athletic director confident the department is one of the best in the country.
In his seven years on the job, Hansen over saw a program that became synonymous with winning, earning five national championships, while instilling a legacy for creating leaders.
He is stepping down to focus full-time on teaching at the college but says the move has been two years in the works — although the two most successful years of his tenure.
“I remember Al Ferchuk telling me right after we won our first national championship, he took me in his office and said ‘Congratulations,’ he shook my hand and then said ‘Excellence is measured overtime,’” said Hansen. “That’s always stuck in my mind. What I’m most proud of when I look back at my time with the athletic department ... is that we kept excellence front and centre.”
He adds he appreciates the senior management at the college — from Linda Moore Martin, the Dean of the School of Health Sciences, in particular — for the support he has received over the years, and their understanding in his decision to step down now.
“Keith has done a phenomenal job of balancing strong academic values with success in competitive sport, while always ensuring a commitment to the welfare of our student athletes and our coaches,” said Moore Martin in a press release. “It was very tempting to not honor his desire to return to full-time teaching, but I have the utmost respect for his decision,”
Keith’s involvement with RDC athletics stretches back more than 20 years. He first came to the program as an athlete, and played on the men’s volleyball team for two years.
Hansen coached the Kings volleyball team for the 12 years and turned them into a dynasty, winning nine national championships.
But the last seven as athletic director may be where he made his biggest impact, bringing in top level coaches for all teams, overseeing the return of Kings hockey to the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference and the creation of a multi-million dollar athletics legacy fund that will continue to fuel the program for the foreseeable future. He has received numerous awards for his efforts including being named Canadian Colleges Athletic Association Athletic Director of the year in 2011-12 and has been inducted into the Alberta Volleyball Hall of Fame.
But what he may be most proud of is the creation of the Captain’s Council in 2013-14 that brought together all current team captains as well as captains from the past. The idea being to create a group that bread leadership into the program, one that will affect them in their athletic pursuits and in their life away from the court or field or ice.
The program earned RDC the CCAA Innovation award.
“Lots of times people give great lip service to ‘We create great leaders’ but how much time do we actually spend arming our young leaders, and I think we did a really good thing with that Captain’s Council,” he said.
RDC president Joel Ward says Hansen’s impact will be felt for a long time.
“He has accomplished so much as athletic director ... he has such a stellar record it will be difficult (to replace him),” said Ward.
There is a short time line to find Hansen’s replacement, hoping to have them in place by July 1, when he will officially step down.
For the first time the athletic director will also become a full-time position at the college, joining most of the other CCAA programs in the country in that regard. Ward says they will conduct a country-wide search to fill the void, but the job will also be quite different than the one Hansen is leaving, in particular regard to their involvement with the construction and operation of the new centre for health and wellness and sport
“They will require a full-time effort not only to manage what we currently have but to prepare for the next generation, I almost consider it Athletic Director 2.0,” said Ward.
As for Hansen, he will be teaching a full slate of courses on sports psychology ... For the first time in his adult life he will not be directly involved in RDC sports, and that may be his biggest challenge.
“I’m not going to miss the 100-plus emails a day, but I am going to miss the interaction with the staff, the interaction with the coaches, that’s going to be extremely hard for me,” he said. “What’s going to be my saving grace is that I’m still going to be at the college, I’m still going to be teaching within the kinesiology program, I’m still going to have contact with the people every day.”