Shaun Newman Podcast - #758 - Rustlers WBB

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

On December 5th Lakeland College fired Chris King from his duties as coach of the women’s basketball program. Chris is a six-time ACAC Coach of the Year and a two-time CCAA Coach of the Year, not to mention they were on a 34 game unbeaten streak and a National Champ. I’m joined by three of his players Sarah Dacuycuy, Susan Ayaa and Andria Stitt to discuss the incident and investigation that ultimately resulted in Chris being terminated from his position. Cornerstone Forum ‘25 https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone25/ Clothing Link: ⁠⁠⁠https://snp-8.creator-spring.com/listing/the-mashup-collection⁠⁠ Text Shaun 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast E-transfer here: [e-mail] Silver Gold Bull Links: Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Text Grahame: [phone]

This is Brett Olin. I'm Dr. Peter McCulloch. This is Tom Longo. This is Chuck Prodnick. This is Alex Krenner. Hey, this is Brad Wall. You're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

Happy Monday. All right, we're going to not breeze through the intro by any stretch, but we've got, I think, a very important one that everybody needs to listen to. I got some, I got a couple of texts in on it, so I'm going to read one of them. But before we get to that, let's talk precious metals quickly. They can be thought of as the ultimate insurance policy against economic uncertainty and government incompetence with deficit spending and fiscal irresponsibility unlikely to end anytime soon. Now is the time to protect a portion of your hard-earned savings with a form of money that has been recognized for thousands of years.

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Tank fabrication, new and refurbish fluid, storage tanks, trucking, pump checks, and demolition for all your oil field needs. Cal Rock Dat C.A. Okay, so we're talking Lloydminster Lakeland College here today on the mashup. I sounded off on it. And I had this coming to me before I recorded, obviously, the intro. So thank you so much for standing behind Chris King.

My daughter played against his team from 2018 to 2022. And he is a great man, great coach, so passionate about what he does and develop great teams year after year. And you could see the love for him and the girls all bought into his plan and were full of team spirit. I'm so proud of his team for forfeiting two games and taking a stand. These types of accusations can be life-destroying. So shout out to the listener who sent that along. I thought that was important to, you know, like, it's one thing for me to have my thoughts on it. But, you know, like once again, you start, like as the audience starts texting, and I'm sure

there'll be more, especially after today's episode, of people texting about, you know, different ways that not only Chris King, but the Lakeland Rustlers Women's Basketball Program, specifically. specifically has operated for the last 17 years under his watch has been something. And, you know, I'll talk about it today, but the kids have been in the basketball Saturday morning camp now for several years, which is under his girl's watchful eye, right? Chris is there lots. And I just, I got nothing but praise for the way he's handled that program over the course of, well, obviously 17 years.

and what's happening right now is just, I don't know, heartbreaking, I guess. That's my thoughts on it. We'll let the girls talk. Just a couple things. Substack, we can review, sign up down in the show notes. It's free to subscribe to. There's a paid portion if you want to get some behind the scenes stuff that you can't find anywhere else. And the Cornerstone Forum is heading to Calgary, Alberta, May 10th at the Wind Sport,

Tom Longo, Alice Criner, Truck Program, Kaelin, Kaelin for, Matt Ery, Chase Barber, Chris Sims, Tom Bodrovics. all going to be there and more tickets down in the show notes, early bird tickets until the end of December. All right, let's get on to that tale of the tape. All three of these ladies play for the Lakeland College Rugglers women's basketball team. I'm talking about Sarah Dekoi Koi, Susan Ayah, and Andrea Stitt.

So buckle up, here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today, I'm joined by Sarah DeKoi Koi, Susan Aya, Aya, uh, already butchered it, folks. And Andrea Stitt. Ladies, thanks for hopping on. Thank you. I guess I sit here in Lloyd Minster. I heard the news about your coach, Chris King, and I was like, okay, you know, like the first thing you want to do is get to the bottom of it, but it doesn't seem like anybody's talking. And I'm like, well, I know who Chris is and something doesn't add up here.

And so I thought maybe we could just start with, I'll go round one by one. You can give a little bit of your background, your time at Lakeland. anything else you want to add in. And so people can get used to your voices. And then from there, maybe we can get into a bit of the story and just a few questions. And I won't hold you here all day by any stretch. Sarah, maybe we could start with you. Just a little bit about yourself.

What brought you to Lakeland? How many years you've been playing for Chris? So my name is Sarah. And I've been in Lakeland for five years now. This is my fourth year of eligibility. I came here during COVID year, so it's been a while. And honestly, like, I didn't even know where Lakeland was before to begin with. Chris literally, like, brought me there.

So, like, that's how I kind of, like, found out about, like, Lloydminster in general and whatnot. So, and pretty much, like, basketball. Like, basketball was, like, the sole reason why I came to Lakeland anyways. and not so much like the school part. Sarah, sorry, where are you originally from? I'm from Estaband, Saskatchewan. Ah, yes. Okay, so a little bit of a trip up to Lloydminster then.

Oh, yeah. Eight hours. Yes, cool. And sorry, how many, you said five years, so you've been under or in Lakeland for five years, but four seasons then, correct? Yeah, four seasons. seasons counted. The COVID year didn't count.

Andrea, I guess just a little bit about yourself. How many years you've been playing for Chris? What brought you to Lloyd Minster? I think those are very unique. Sarah started us off in a perfect way. Okay, yes. This is my first year playing for Chris. I played three years previous at St. Mary's in Calgary. I came and played for Chris

because I wanted to be a part of a winning program, something that was more stable, something that was more like real deal collegiate basketball, in my opinion, like to help me get to the next level. And he kind of like, he said the right things to me during recruiting. I came up in April and fell in love with Lloydminster and the team. So that's how I'm here. I'm from Alabama. When you say stable, do you mind if I just pick on that for a second? Because this whole situation tries to paint him as the complete opposite word of stable. What was what was it about Lloyd's Mr. Lakeland rustlers that look stable to you or coming from a different program? For me, it was like the culture.

Like, everything was so family-oriented. Like, even when I came, took him to his house, I made his wife, I met his kids. And then, like, even when I came and met with the girls, everything was just A-1, everyone's together. It was no bad vibes, which was new to me. Because coming around a championship team with someone who they just literally played against maybe two months, it was no, like, bad vibes. So I was just like, this is where I need to be.

That's cool. I appreciate you sharing that. Finally, Susan, and I apologize for butchering your name off the hop. You know, you told me exactly how to say it. And what did I say? I'm like, I'm about to butcher this. It's okay. Because my brain goes, I should pronounce it one way anyways.

That's, I'm getting off on a tangent. Susan, how long have you been with Lakeland? What brought you to Lloyd Minster? And I don't know, if you got any other details, fire away. I've been here for three years now. I'm from Edmonton, Alberta, so not too far away, like two and a half hours, I guess. And what brought me to Lakeland? I didn't even know Lakeland existed.

I didn't know Lloyd Minster existed until Chris came to recruit me just like during a practice when I was playing for a club team. So like I took like a year off and like I was playing club. And then Chris came and recruited me from there. and he was like, oh, yeah, it's just Lloydminster. I'm like, okay, I guess I might as well see how this is, you know. So he, like, he convinced me. I didn't even know what the team looked like at the time. I didn't know anything about this place.

I just, like, showed up and signed. And, yeah, it ended up being a very, very good program. And, like, I really enjoyed being here. And apologies. How many years did you say? My brain probably can catch it. Okay, okay. So, ladies, I'm hearing.

like you've all played, minus Andrea, you've all played for Chris for multiple years. And but Andrew, your comments about stable and the welcoming environment and everything else find really important. Now, you know, like I go, this is what I know. So I want you to fill in as many blanks as you can for me and the audience of my minister.

All I know is November 28th, they put Chris King on administrative leave after a former player allegedly filed a complaint with the college. I've been told for, different sources that it was during a praxident practice an accident happened and from there all hell of blue broke loose and from november 28th so i mean like what are we at it's like it's basically a week later it went from like complaint to you guys you ladies hadn't lost a game in pretty much

two years to now you're forfeiting your last two to he's now terminated and everybody just move on it's nothing to see here so what am i missing and what the heck happened I'll start. I'll start. I think, first of all, this happened in September. Yeah. So the whole investigation process was trash. We didn't get a say-so.

I think everything that kind of lined up, it kind of just blew up all at one scenario. Like, we weren't, we weren't, what's the word on with? Consulted. Yeah. Like, we had no voice in it. Like, half the team were able to speak during the investigation. And it was, in my opinion, none of the players who should have been investigated, in my opinion. It was very one-sided base.

They didn't reach out to see, like, how this would affect anyone. I think it was just a one-and-go thing. Like, we hear what we need to hear, and it was a rap after that to the end. I don't think they actually thought about how it would affect the team. I think they were just, like, super, like. like clueless to what was going on. Like Drey said, this was what, back in September, and it just blew up now. And like, in between that time, like, none of us knew what was going on.

Like, no one had mentioned about investigations up until near this point. And it just came up right to our faces. It was kind of like a slap in the face. And I don't know, the lack of communication there was really, really crappy for. this program. Yeah, I agree. Like, we didn't really know what was going on. And, like, we were kind of just, like, left in a funk when they told us that this was happening. And it was just, like, super unfair. And, like, everyone was just confused. And, like, it was just, like, it was super uncalled for. And this wasn't fair in our end as well. Like, and it's like, we worked so hard to get to this

point and like for it to just be taken away like that just it was very like just not the right way to do it so ladies if you if you can like um i didn't know it was september okay so like did the investigate do you know if the investigation started back in september or did you just get so what happened in between september and now like we we literally like played our games like things were normal to us. Like we were winning, we were enjoying, and like, all of a sudden it just like suddenly blew up. And so like, we were just as confused as everybody else at that point. And, and then I guess if I go back to September, if you're okay to talk about it, like, all I've been told is something happened at a practice. Is that at least kind of in the vicinity of what's

going on? One of the things that has really irritated me about Lloyd Minster in general is when things like this happen, it's like everything goes on a rug, nobody's talking about anything. We're going to act like nothing happened and we're going to move on and things are going to move on. And then now you got Chris King getting removed and you're like, what do happen? No, nothing happened. Just move on. We'll get a new coach and it's not a big deal. Guy's been at college for 17 years.

And he's put his, I think, by looks of it, heart and soul into it. The guy is more decorated than most coaches. I mean, every coach wants to have. Let's just, I'm just going to scroll down here. He received the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association Coaching Excellent Award. He received the Alberta. That was in 2024. He received the Alberta College's Athletic Association Coaching Excellence Award in 2022.

He's been named ACAC's coach of the year, 2024, 2020, 2020, 2018, 2016, 2015. He's won the league three of the last four years, I think, and he's a national champion. I'm like, okay. So that doesn't mean he's above the law by any stretch. I want to make that very clear. But what on earth happened back at the practice in September that all of you lovely ladies are like, well, we're not playing a ballgame without Chris. But another person's like, nope, this happened. And we're going right to the top and we're getting them out of there if you don't mind sharing.

I think when you come into, like for me, when you come into an organization like this or like a program like this, you have to accept the accountability. and a lot of people can't accept the accountability. Like we were talking as a team the other day and someone said, like, we carry us up as a professional team, which we do, whether that's team bonding, workouts, weights, individuals, like we have a lineup day by day by day by day. And we know we have to keep our grades, go to class. And it's precautions for those, like, repercussions for those if we don't.

So everyone knows, like, what they're getting their stuff into. I think like when you put in that environment and you're not ready for it like you think you are And it's kind of like put in your face and It's like a bit of embarrassment And you run with these false stories and you don't know how deep it could get I think that's where it is like Someone didn't agree with the This and now it's turned into something that no one ever knew it would turn into in my opinion

Yeah, I agree. Like, what had happened was, obviously, like, our team, we made a mistake and, like, as a collective and, like, forgot our duties. And then with our own team consequences, we obviously had to deal with that consequence by, like, running. Like, every other team, if something happens, you have to run for it, correct? And what had happened was, obviously, something happened. And the people who were meant to be held accountable for it, I feel like they took it, they just weren't able to hold themselves to that standard in a sense.

You know, because, like, we all knew, we all know the repercussions within our team. And, like, these are things that we set for, ourselves and I feel like they just had a hard time adjusting to that and it honestly had nothing to do with Chris like it was boundary like stuff stuff things that we set for ourselves and the whole team agreed on this consequence though like you want nothing just like oh like everybody's like okay let's get this over with and move about our day yeah I feel like with the standards um I feel like every other team in ACAC have this certain standard they hold up to.

And I think like this is exactly why Lakeland Russell's WBB is always so successful is because we hold ourselves accountable for all these standards. And I think like just like a couple people just like never really kept that. And they were just like super complacent and whatnot. And I think that's the reason why like, things were taken out of hand. But it was three individuals who got in trouble. Two are still here.

One, who's this problem is all around. It's literally over there, been over there since the internet. So what I don't get is how you side with a person who's not here. When you have 14 girls who are here, still investing in this program, still want to be here, still enjoy being here. And you sit on that and forget about the whole other 14. Because that's, they forgot about the whole other 14. With Chris being gone, like, I'm going to say it.

I don't even know if I'm coming back. It's just, it's like this now. We don't know as a team. I don't know as an individual. They don't even know how it as a college. So. Yeah, it's just like very, like, I don't understand how, like, I mean, again, you said he's been coaching for 17 years.

He's built this program from bottom and up. And it just doesn't make any sense. sense to me that like one thing could be so harsh could give such a harsh punishment to a coach who we knew that didn't do anything wrong. Yeah. Well, so ladies, you don't know this about me, but I played college down in the States, NCAA Division III, nothing, you know, like just to kind of give it some perspective. So when I, when I hear, you know, discipline, when I hear expectations in those words, if you don't come from the sporting background or even, you know, you know, just to kind of, the high level sporting background.

You might go, oh, I wonder what they're talking about. I personally get exactly what you're talking about. You know, on this side, when I was playing in college, we had people go out and break curfew, get caught. And then we had to run the next day. And instead of them running, we had to run a medicine ball down and say thank you over and over again, right? As punishment for both sides, you know, like your teammates are supposed to,

well, us running for them was, you know, was shame on them, but also, you know, I guess from where I sat, I was like, well, let's get it over for them, right? Like, we're going to move on from this and we're going to be stronger for it and everybody makes mistakes. When I hear this story, I'm like, man, this is, it breaks my heart. Is it all right if I call you, Dre? I feel like, or is it Dreya? Dreya? Who's called me, Dre? Okay. It breaks my heart to hear that out of this comes, possibly someone who's like, well, I don't even know if I'm coming back for not bringing Chris back. I think that speaks to like the situation here.

You know, we talk about him building the program over 17 years. I don't know if this is true. You ladies tell me you've been playing for him a lot longer than most. And I'd be curious to go back through the 17 years. But I'd read is that this is his first complaint in 17 years. So like, so one complaint and boom, it's gone. Am I wrong on that? Like, forgive me if there's been complaints and he's, you know, a trail of destruction.

No, you said it right. No other complaints out of the 17 years. Yep. You would think it's like a targeted investigation. That's how I see it. It's a very targeted investigation. They stuck with one side, kept that one side, and it was just rats. Like, the more information we, like, talk and try to understand each other,

It's like the more we feel, I was like, did they play us? Like, they were trying to interview some of us, some of our teammates, after they had already made the decision. Yeah. So it was just like, y'all giving us false hope when deep down y'all been new he wasn't coming back, even before he was suspended. Like, it seemed like the case was closed. So, and then we were supposed to go to Medicine Hat and Briarcrest without them even telling us.

So we were supposed to get on the bus. travel five hours without a coach, go in a hotel, and sit there. And they can't talk to us. They couldn't talk to us during this whole process. So imagine us sitting in a hotel five hours away from where we are without a coach. For three days. For three days. And getting told that we would be coached by other people.

And even then the coach that they suggested didn't want to coach because they were like what is going on. Yeah. Yeah. Like no one knew what was happening. Was that, ladies, I don't know, you tell me, was that a hard decision? I mean, like I just think of undefeated and, you know, defending national champs and all of it and not to just like put it all aside, but to not get on the bus, you know, like the way the story comes rolling out and forgive me, folks, if this is just the way my brain reads it, okay?

I read it and they paint, they try and paint Chris in this light of like, well, he was something, to an ex player and it probably wasn't good and that's why he's out and I look at it the other way I'm like I look at a full team and assistant coaches wouldn't get on a bus to go play in an undefeated if you were 0 and 10 it makes sense it's like a asteroid we're already oint 10 like this sucks you guys you ladies are undefeated and I mean like this this is a pretty incredible feat so that is not any easy choice but maybe I'm wrong on that maybe the way I read it maybe it was just an easy choice. I don't know.

I guess just curious on the walking through that and the choice not to get on the bus and support a coach who'd been removed. I think with that, like, I knew personally, like, it wasn't easy decision for me. Like, I didn't even think about it. Like, once I was like, no, I'm not getting on that bus and I'm not playing.

I think it's just the fact that Chris was the one that got us team. I don't want to end it off with him not being there. Like, I think it's just a respect thing for the person who has built this program. Again, I'm going to keep bringing that up because it's honestly, like, that's how it is. Like, he's built this program and we are a national championship, but he also put us there. He got us there as well. So, like, it would suck for us to just disrespect him by playing without him.

so it wasn't it wasn't a hard decision i instantly did not want to play me neither i like when we got that news like the first thought was like we have to have our coaches back like through and through knowing him all these three years was like he always had our backs for any situation and thinking about being in his position i would want my my uh player to have my back as well, right? Especially when, like, I've invested all this time and, like, love and effort within these players, like, I would only hope for them to stand up for me. And especially when they were there and they know what's right.

In the process, you mentioned they talked to some of you after the fact or maybe what felt like after the fact. Did they talk to all of you? Like, in this interview process, did they go talk to all 14? players and coaches and I don't know like I guess if I'm gonna remove one of the I don't know a fantastic coach I hate sorry Chris I don't know if I could put you as a greatest coach for all time that's that might be a stretch in it but a great coach over 17 years with an impeccable record I go like there's 17 years to like you could you could go back you could talk to a whole bunch of student athletes and and see like you know you could build the case of like it's one complaint

hmm or there's 50 right like I mean you can see the trend you can't see a trend over the course of this investigation, did they talk to all of it? No. No. They did not. Not even half. Yeah. No.

So we didn't, a lot of us didn't have a say in any of this. They didn't know how we felt about it. But you were all at the incident, right? Yeah. In my brain, forgive me if I'm wrong on this, hockey player. I envision a bag skate and it's like, that sucked. That wasn't fun. because you're talking about discipline, you're talking about gym, you're talking about running, my brain goes to a bag skate.

I envision something similar to that, so you're all there, correct? Yes. And then they only talked to a handful. Yeah, sorry, Susan. Sorry, go ahead. I was right next to the person that it happened to. I did not get interviewed. I did not get asked about it.

I had no clue that this investigation was happening until we were told we can't. get on that bus. Like, we had nothing, like no word, no voice within the situation. If you could, since this time, I guess I have, you know,

like when it comes to Lakeland, have you been able to voice your opinion to Lakeland? Because they hired a third party investigator, correct? Am I right in that? Have you had your, have you had an opportunity to talk to, I don't know, like an athletic director or somebody? we have like partially like he would in and out like would tell us what's going on but not really like

the full thing and by that time i feel like it was still too late yeah like it by the time he by the time they started like speaking to us like it was he was even like past the suspension like we just like didn't know we literally in the span of september to his suspension we didn't know anything. If you were to, well, no, actually, I was going to ask, have you been able to talk to Chris since this all went down? Like, I don't know the legal ramifications if he's allowed to talk to his players, anything like that. Like, I know I tried, for the audience, I tried getting Chris to come on, right? And, you know, like, you can imagine the situation on his end.

And maybe someday, but right now it's kind of tied up. So have, I don't know. Are you allowed to talk to Chris? And like the coat, like, are you still doing practices and everything? Or is it just been nothing for a little over a week? From suspension to him being terminated, we couldn't speak to him. Or he wasn't allowed to speak to us at least is from our perspective. Like, we couldn't, we couldn't be associated with him at all during that suspension up to the termination.

And then when we like found out about the termination, that's what. when they were like, you guys are freely, like you guys could go talk to him, whatever. But he hasn't been able to come to the gym. Like, we've been practicing, but like, it's been so different. Like, it's just like a lack of motivation right now. But yeah.

If you could say, I don't want to pull you ladies in to anything. My brain just goes, okay, if you could say something to the city of Lloyd, because I mean, Lakeland College is in Vermilient, two camps, This is a vermilion in Lloyd Minster. But I mean like, you know, I was one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is I'm like, I sit in Lloyd Minster and I didn't know any of the story, right?

So if Lloyd's listening to this, is there anything you'd want to say to Lloyd? Is there anything you want to say to Lakeland? Is there anything you want to say to Chris? Those three. And then I'll let, I'll let you ladies out of here. I appreciate you giving me some time. And I don't mean to pull you in anything else. I really do appreciate you giving a little bit of backstory on what the heck is going on here.

I'll start because they know I'm the bluntest, to be honest. What I'll say, I'll start with the investigation. Let's just get it, you know? Okay, so we were at practice, yes, we had to run, we ran, we were all tired, we were all upset, whatever the case may be. We're athletes, we're girls. Got to a point where we had someone go down. It's athletics, people go down to football games, people go down football practices, basketball practices, whatever the case may be.

It was not anyone's fault. It just happened to happen that day during that situation, which is sad. Like, we never want to see that happen to anybody, nor do our coaches. They ate it to her while we walked to the other side of the gym, as everyone was instructed to because you don't want to crowd a person who's down, whatever the case may be. I will say about maybe a couple of minutes after that. She was able to get up.

We walked to the gym, out of the gym, walked to the locker room, everything. And my opinion seemed to be okay. It seemed to be fine. They were able to aid to her. They were talking to her. They were making sure she was okay, whatever the case may be. She went to the hospital after that. I don't know furthermore about the medical side after that hospital visit, whatever the case.

is with that but I thought she was fine I thought she would be practicing in the next two to three weeks whatever that didn't happen I was clueless to that again I'm a first year too so I wasn't as close to everyone as I am now but I thought it was fine about stuff would go back to normal which it did go back to normal I feel like it brought us closer in my opinion after that whole discipline scenario and then a couple weeks what two weeks after that she she left. I'm thinking, okay, this is for the best, I never want to see somebody quit basketball

or whatever case may be, but I was just like, okay, we still got a hoop. Fast forward, three months later, four months later, we're here. And now it's just like, what are the false accusations? What is being told,

what has been told, like what's been said, Like, that's what we need to know. Like, what are y'all saying? Because we were there. Like, I don't think nothing, no protocol was broken. No one was disrespected. No one was neglected. No one.

I just don't see how this case went from zero to 10. Like, I just don't see it. I've known Chris for a short amount of time, but I felt the most comfortable. I felt I've been playing basketball since third grade. So, like, you can know the difference between the bad coach and the good coach by now. Like, I never looked at him second sideways, like, questioning his authority. Never.

I don't know. He just gave me very security. Like, I felt good with him, whether that was on the court, off the court, in his office, at his house, whatever the case may be. Like, if something wants to happen, I'm going to call Chris. And that's, to this day. Like, I have no one here who I can call besides Chris. Like, I don't think they get that. Like, that's my father figure here.

Like, besides being a coach, he made relationships with us that's going to stick with us forever. He has former players that are his assistant coaches. Like, that don't speak value neither. Like, why would somebody who don't like him come back and coach with him again? All his alumni come back, ring ceremony. He had his whole former three teams here. Like, who does that?

Who's able to do that? Like, he got players from all around the world still coming back to just. show respect to him to the program that he built. Like, it just speaks volume. And to have nobody else talk and put input, it's just targeted. Like, somebody was targeting him for sure. Like, targeting him for sure. He has so much to lose.

And for them to just do that to him, that's like, no, that's messed it. Very targeted. Very, that investigation need to be investigated. Like, that's how I see it. I feel like, every. Everyone just really needs to know the truth. And right now they don't. And like people don't understand how much this is affecting a lot of us personally,

not just through basketball, our lives. Like people don't understand that. And we're never going to, they're never going to know. And like this is exactly why we need to like voice ourselves because clearly they're not listening to our coaches. They're not hearing them. And like, now they got to hear us. And it sucks that it's happening right after he did get punished.

But they just like, they just need to know the truth. Everybody needs to know the truth because it's like lies after lies. And that's not what this program is about. It really isn't. And it sucks to see a good, built up program go to shit. Nobody really wants to see that. And for a person who put their lives. basically on this.

I was saying to you, Sarah, before we got on here, the other thing that I, you know, maybe the audience, the audience of this is across Canada, right? Chris has got three young kids and a wife and, I don't know, from where I sit, a family man, right? I bring, one of the things that, you know, you judge a tree by the fruit at bears. And one of the things is on Saturday mornings,

we bring the kids to rustlers, women rustlers basketball camp. And the kids run around and like, you can just see it. I'm just like, I don't know. I've been a part of a lot of different sports teams. And when you see little things like that going on and ran so well, you're like, something doesn't add up here. Like, it just, it just doesn't add up. And I guess I just applaud you ladies for speaking on.

I know that's probably not the easiest thing to do. This is where I make my living, right? I try and open up opportunities for people to speak. and you ladies got a lot of life ahead of you and to open up your mouths and talk about something happening in basketball but to somebody you highly respect is what I'm getting I really appreciate you you hopping on and doing this if there's any final thoughts

well the floor is yours I just want to say that Chris built us to be the best people we know we can be he's a good person just like everybody else is and he would always teach us to be good people and to do the right thing. And right now, like, I'm glad we're doing the right thing, and people need to just hear that.

I agree. Whenever I speak to Chris or just how he is in general, like, his goal for us is just to make us better people outside of... Like, it's not just about basketball when it comes to him and this program. It's about our futures. It's about our lives. It's about like the little things, right? Like being on time and just doing your work, getting it in.

And just like knowing that that huge piece has been stripped from us. Like it's just so devastating. And it's really hard to like go through with it, especially since like, he's somebody that that always had hope in all of us and saw more in us than we were able to see ourselves, right?

And really it's just we just need people to know the kind of person he really is and it's just it's heartbreaking that that was taken for granted by some other people.

We've been in this program for a lot. We won't stay for two, three, four years if that wasn't the case. A lot of people graduate from here who played five, six, seven years to be, in fact, like, people won't stay this long if they knew that the program, and they didn't know that Chris was a good person and a good coach. Like, it's exactly why we became so successful in the last four years. like it's not like this is a big university

we're not in the big city like no this really not a lot to offer in Lloyd you're telling me the Lloyd Minster's not the bustling metropolis of Alberta like what we literally have each other

like that's what makes the culture like Sarah's saying like we're so here and to take a piece like such a huge piece I don't think they understand how like we're saying like a huge piece like that's like a cake without the ice it like who wants a dry cake like

like it's just it just don't make sense it don't peanut butter without the jam you know what I mean like it just don't make sense like you look at it look at it and be like what that's what that's what this whole scenario is like what well ladies I appreciate you you you doing this and coming on I know somewhere Chris is probably listening and appreciating it as well I'm happy to hear that you get to talk to them because my my big worry and I guess you know with the termination announcement I mean obviously they they you can talk to them again but to you know to I can just imagine 17 years of doing something and building something up you know to what it is and how successful it is and then to have that stripped away overnight and then not be allowed to talk to

the people you're around all the time that's got to be on both sides very very difficult and so I I appreciate you coming on and doing this. And, well, I don't know where it goes, you know. Certainly my hope is for all of you, you get to continue to play basketball and somehow, some way, shape, or form. Chris is a part of it. But I appreciate you coming on and doing this. And hopefully this can give you and your teammates a voice to be heard by more than just,

well, I hope Lloyd Minster. I hope Lloyd Minster tunes into this because, I mean, I think we've been spoiled with how good of a basketball program has been sitting in our town for the last. I mean, it's been, it's taken some time, but the last couple of years have been pretty, pretty wild, you know? Like, I mean, Nationals was here last year and you ladies, I don't know, national champs. It's wild to me, even to like rattle off all the things. It's just wild to me. So appreciate you coming on and doing this. And, yes, all the best here, ladies, with your exams coming up, I believe, and travels for Christmas.

Thank you so much for letting us do this. Thank you