Christine Stapleton - 1

- What made me wanna join the Western Mustangs is the challenge of leading one of the biggest institutions and this biggest Sport and Rec programming offering in Canada. It was very exciting for me to be given that opportunity. There's a great tradition of excellence at Western and I thought that it would be a great challenge to come into Western and continue on that pride and tradition, and the spirit of the Mustangs on campus and in the community, as well as overseeing 48 teams, 1100 student-athletes, 22 sport clubs, we have 16,000 Intramural participants, we bring over 100,000 community members through our spaces. It's really an unbelievably busy, bustling, thriving department and I feel very challenged and humbled to be leading it. Obstacles and challenges that I've overcome they happen to everybody and the more that you can embrace them and work through them, the higher chance that you are going to be successful. So those are some of the things that I learned as a student-athlete was how to persist and pursue and be resilient when things didn't go my way. You stay positive, you go back to the things that you value the most and then you make decisions based on those values. When I was working with the national team, I was on maternity leave and due to budget cuts, my job was no longer there. I'm on leave and I have no job to come back to. So how do you manage that? You use your network. That was a turning point in my career was losing...losing my job, but then gaining that opportunity to pursue...the career change and get in as Associate Director of Athletics at Waterloo and then continuing to build on the opportunity that I earned and building it into the career that I have had now... that went through Calgary and now at Western. My advice for women who are looking to continue their journey is to find something that they're passionate about in sport. And doesn't have to be an athlete, doesn't have to be a coach, doesn't have to be an administrator, can be an official, can be a statistician, it can be a volunteer. Find what you're passionate about and pursue and persist, and be resilient because the pathway won't always be clear. Women that are finding ways to persist and really lean into your network to get to where you wanna go.