Wins are better than losses, but they’re not the sole signifier of success
At the start of our interview, Jordan Richey, video calling from home, notes how his wife walks by him and chuckles at his discomfort.
“This is going to be very awkward because I hate talking about myself,” says NAIT’s athletics and recreation director, a job that includes overseeing the Ooks sports teams.
But, Richey, who loves all sports, is a good sport. Just the same, he doesn’t plan on talking about how he was named athletic director of the year for the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) in May and then, in June, earned the honour from the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA).
Instead, Richey intends to talk about what those accolades say about the direction of his program.
Under his captaincy, his team has changed the game of athletics at NAIT. Wins and losses still matter but they aren’t the scoresheet by which success is measured. In fact, the sports themselves have become a means of achieving a victory intended to be felt by more than just Ooks student-athletes, and well beyond gameday.
Learn more about the Ooks athletics and recreation at NAIT
Played every position
Since joining NAIT in 2000 as a badminton coach, Richey has been amazed by his good fortune. “Sometimes I feel like a kid still just doing what I love,” he says.
Richey has grown into his current role over the years. After coming to the polytechnic with an education degree (and later earning a masters in organizational leadership), he made his way through “almost every job you could think of in athletics and rec” before taking over as director in spring 2019.
“That's really helped, because I know every position that I oversee now.”
One department fits all
When Richey was working his way through the org chart, NAIT athletics operated differently. The years before 2019 were marked by division: athletics, recreation and facilities were separate departments. But Richey wanted them back together, as they’d been when he started.
“It just made sense,” he says.
Richey was motivated by more than just realizing obvious synergies. He saw their reconnection as a way to kickstart a cultural change – one that found support with NAIT’s executive.
“When Gerard Hayes came on board as the vice-president of students and campus life [in May 2022], he said athletics is for the student experience,” says Richey. “That’s always been my vision.”
That experience applied to student-athletes, but also to every student in attendance at NAIT, creating a rallying point for the entire campus community.
Richey and his staff created opportunities for other students to work at Ooks games, and for student-athletes to volunteer for campus initiatives. They worked toward a stronger focus on academics (“our GPA is higher than the NAIT average,” says Richey). And, in time, they were heartened to see more fans in the stands than the usual showing of family and friends.
“It's all about student experience,” says Richey. “If it's not going to make that experience a good one, then why are we doing it?”
For the good of the league
A predecessor named Gregg Meropoulis (who spent 40 years with NAIT athletics) used to tell Richey “you’re only as good as your league.” That’s why he now also helps administer the ACAC, of which NAIT was a founding member in 1964.
Richey has contributed to management, reviewed how championship events have been held, supported badminton coaches across the league, and is soon to serve as vice-president finance. He’s not alone, with several other staff taking on other roles with the league.
“I think what I'm most proud of is that our entire department engages in that work, and they don't have to,” says Richey.
At the same time, the ACAC – which now comprises 17 Alberta post-secondary teams – has become an increasingly competitive league.
“There's so much parity,” says Richey. Once, NAIT was a mainstay among the league’s top teams. Now, “every night is a battle.”
More to come
Richey sees the development of athletics and recreation at NAIT as a long game, one that he hopes might one day involve more than his own team.
In particular, Richey dreams of hosting ACAC and CCAA championships with the help of fellow departments. A unified approach might involve the likes of Radio and Television students, he suggests, for extra media coverage and learning opportunities, or aspiring chefs from Culinary Arts who might test their catering chops on feeding hungry student-athletes and support staff.
Richey also hopes to extend athletic opportunities to even more NAIT students. This November, he’ll file the application for the polytechnic to participate in indoor track, the only sport from which it is absent since re-entering golf and cross-country running in 2023.
In the meantime, despite his reluctance to talk about awards, Richey takes them as encouragement – and as confirmation of the talent of a team that’s eager to reimagine athletics and recreation on the court, field and ice, and across the polytechnic.
“It validates the work we're doing,” says Richey “It makes me proud that we are going in the right direction and [that] NAIT is providing the best student experience it can, and that others are noticing.”