Michelle Sawatzky-Koop named to Canadian Volleyball Hall of Fame

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This article was published 29/04/2024 (705 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It took longer than it should have for Michelle Sawatzky-Koop to know she was going to become a member of the Canadian Volleyball Hall of Fame.

Not because there was doubt she deserved entry but because she kept ignoring the call from officials to let her know she was part of the class of 2024.

“I was getting calls from Ottawa, and I didn’t recognize the number, so I didn’t answer it,” Sawatzky-Koop said, laughing.

After an email asking her to please call back, Sawatzky-Koop finally got the news she was set to join the hall this year.

It’s yet another honour for the Steinbach volleyball player, who was named to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 2022.

“I think when someone tells you you’re going into a hall of fame for your country, it doesn’t seem quite real,” Sawatzky-Koop said.

“There I was in my living room in Steinbach, Manitoba. Many things in volleyball, in my life, when I look back already seem surreal.”

Sawatzky-Koop said memories from the volleyball court came flooding back when she got the call.

“I’ve played a team sport, and I owe something like this to so many people, and I’m really proud to carry that on my shoulders,” she said.

Sawatzky-Koop found success at every level of her career, winning a high school championship in 1987 with Steinbach Regional Secondary School before joining the University of Manitoba Bisons and leading them to three straight national championships between 1990 and 1993.

It was the international game where Sawatzky-Koop made her mark, beginning to play with the senior national team in 1995 and helping Team Canada to a bronze medal at the Pan-Am games and Olympic qualification.

Sawatzky-Koop’s lack of size for a setter led coaches to take her out of the starting lineup during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, but she soon would be back on the court, re-gaining her starting job just in time to give Canada their first win at the Olympics against Peru.

Sawatzky-Koop said she remembered the team had a “dogged determination” to begin the fifth and deciding set.

“Being at the Olympics feels different than any other event, being at the food court feels different than any other event, but when you walk on the volleyball court and you’ve been a volleyball athlete for over a decade, that is really you’re home,” she said.

“The dimensions of the court don’t change when you’re at the Olympics, surprise surprise. I just remember us feeling we knew we could win. We knew if we did the basic stuff we had worked on since we were 12-years-old we would be in good shape.”

The 5’6 Sawatzky-Koop got emotional when recalling the moment a Peru hitter sent a kill attempt wide, giving Canada the winning point.

“That was something I was never supposed to be able to do at my size, and being from a small town, and being a rural girl,” she said.

“Talk about a moment where memories flood back in, that was a moment like that. All the nos I got, all of the people that said I wouldn’t be able to play this sport at the highest level, and to make history with some of my very best friends at the time, that was a moment of a lifetime.”

When Sawatzky-Koop isn’t hosting the morning show on AM 1250 in Steinbach, or speaking at an event, she works as an assistant coach for her alma mater, helping the next generation of Bisons players. The University of Manitoba women’s team is enjoying a renaissance, winning their first ever CanadaWest championship this season, with Sawatzky-Koop named as the school’s assistant coach of the year for 2024.

“To hear the girls say that I’m hard on them and yet they feel empowered to be great, man, that might be the nicest thing any athlete has said to me,” Sawatzky-Koop said.

“I’ve always been on a mission to find a way to help young athletes be tough enough and good enough to be brave enough to say they actually want to win and yet feel completely whole and well and healthy to do it.”

While she’s about to gain another prestigious honour, Sawatzky-Koop might be more excited to be losing one this summer. Assuming Eric Leoppky can stay healthy, he’ll be suiting up for Canada at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, meaning Sawatzky-Koop will now have to share the title of ‘Steinbach’s Olympian.’

“I have held that torch alone for far too many years,” she said, laughing.

“There have been incredible athletes along the way since that deserved to be at something like an Olympic Games, but that’s how hard it is to get there.”

The induction ceremony for the Canadian Volleyball Hall of Fame will take place June 5 in Ottawa. Inducted alongside Sawatzky-Koop will be builders Robert Wright, Doramy Ehling and David Tweedley and attacker Gavin Schmitt.

Wright and Tweedly were key figures in bringing beach volleyball to Canada in the 1960s, hosting the first-ever international tournament at Toronto’s Balmy Beach Canoe Club, where they also founded a men’s volleyball club.

Wright also coached the men’s national team at the 1967 Pan-Am games, hosted in Winnipeg. Tweedley was an excellent player as well as a builder, suiting up for Chicago’s George Williams College in the 50s and making appearances on the men’s national team in the 60s.

Ehling has been a mainstay at Volleyball Canada since 1980, when she started coaching the junior women’s team. She’s also worked as the program’s technical coordinator, was the director of high performance for university players and spent time with Sport Canada. She now works as the CEO of the Rick Hansen foundation and serves as chair of the women’s national team.

Saskatchewan’s Schmitt played on the men’s national team for nine years, helping them to one of their most successful eras of all time. Highlights include a Pan-Am bronze medal on home soil and Canada’s best-ever Olympics finish (fourth) at the 2016 games.