Coursey takes over as Providence athletic director

Providence College didn’t have a lot of time to find a new athletic director for this year, and turned inward to find one.

Joel Coursey, the Otterburne-based college’s women’s basketball coach, will be pulling double duty this year, working as the interim athletic director on top of his normal role as coach.

It’s been a whirlwind start to the season for Coursey, who needed to leap into the role quickly after Russell Willms left the college.

“They haven’t even updated my door-tag,” Coursey said, laughing.

“It was very short notice, and it was end of the summer so it was a busy time to come in.”

Coursey is a good fit to run athletics for Providence, with experience in all three of the school’s current sports. He was a volleyball player in high school and even coached the Pilots women’s soccer team for a season before current head coach Troy Walker was hired.

He played basketball for Providence between 2008 and 2011, taking over as head basketball coach for the women’s program in 2012. He has been the college’s sports information coordinator, sports camps coordinator and even served as assistant athletic director for a time.

“I’ve been around for 13 years, so I’m quite familiar with how things work here,” Coursey said.

“It’s not the biggest shock to do this. The challenge is doing this with coaching basketball. It wasn’t like re-inventing the wheel.”

Running the athletic department at Providence is a challenge unlike nearly anything else in Canada. The Pilots play in three leagues throughout the season, competing not only in Manitoba, but also in the American-based National Christian Colleges Athletic Association and Northern Intercollegiate Athletics Conference.

Coursey could only name two other programs in the country which compete as much as Providence does in the States.

“It’s pretty rare, and for Manitoba we’re uniquely busy,” Coursey said.

When asked to describe the role of an athletic director, Coursey said it was all about managing the six coaches (counting himself) and other three employees in the department.

Coursey said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to become Providence’s full-time athletic director.

“I’m doing my best not to think about the future and just try and get things done to the best of my abilities now and in the day-to-day,” he said.

Coursey has been an innovator on the court, bringing in a brand new system which sees 5-player substitutions throughout a game. He was named as the Basketball Manitoba coach of the year last season.

Providence is launching a new athletics website this week. Fans looking for recaps, upcoming games and news from the Pilots should first go to the college’s base website to find the new link.

The college sports season is underway for Providence, as the program’s soccer teams hosted a pair of games this weekend. The volleyball and basketball teams have begun their own exhibition seasons.

It will be an historic year for Providence this season, as the program becomes the first Manitoba school to host a Canadian Colleges Athletic Association national championship when the best men’s volleyball college teams in the country come to Niverville in March.