NEWS FILE PHOTO - St. Francis Xavier School lead sports academy instructor Kennedy Werre and principal Nick Gale pose for a photo in August while gearing up for the academy's inaugural year.
rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com@MHNMcCracken
Kennedy Werre may have closed the book on her Medicine Hat Rattlers women’s basketball career in 2018, but she’s still finding success in the Gas City.
The all-time Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference rebound leader-turned-teacher was recently nominated for the Edwin Parr Award by the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education – an annual honour that recognizes exceptional first-year teachers in Alberta.
“It means a lot. As a first-year teacher, it just shows the amount of support I actually have behind me in this division and that they believe in what I am doing,” said Werre, who teaches Grade 4 and 5 at St. Francis Xavier School while serving as lead sports academy instructor. “I just want to say thank-you for all the support from the community in Medicine Hat.”
Werre says it’s the students who keep her striving for greatness as a teacher – even when they can’t be in the classroom together.
“It’s one of the hardest things,” Werre said of teaching through the pandemic. “I’m lucky because a lot of my students can be online through Google Meet and stuff. Just to see their faces every day is what keeps me going. It’s a hard time for everyone right now, and being able to still see their faces even though we’re going through this is kind of the light at the end of the tunnel for me.”
The 24-year-old McCoy graduate has been a key player in helping get St. Francis Xavier’s sports academy – which opened in the fall – off the ground. The academy focuses on increased skill development for students in volleyball, soccer, baseball and of course basketball.
“I went through Notre Dame (and its sports academy) as a student, and then I got to go back there with subbing and stuff. Being able to kind of have that experience as a student and being able to now be the teacher of that is really neat,” said Werre. “We have it on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the afternoon and we rotate through four sports per year, so it’s a multi-sport academy. Basically we’re just trying to promote physical literacy through sport. It’s been a huge success.
“We actually have a play assessment through Be Fit For Life. They test our students, where their physical literacy levels are at. We had one in September, and we just got one back in February – – our second round – and you can see the growth. It’s just really neat to see that and it’s been a blessing to be part of it and being able to kind of start it myself.”
St. Francis Xavier principal Nick Gale says interest in the school’s sports academy has doubled since the fall, and Werre is responsible for that success.
“I’m so proud of the work that Kennedy has done this year. We have asked so much of her in her first year teaching and she excelled on every level,” Gale said in an email with the News. “She worked in a double-graded classroom and led our school’s new sports academy. She took the sports academy program, that was little more than an idea over a year ago, and turned it into a complete success in such a short time. The program is going to nearly double in size within the first year of operation. Kennedy is the reason for that success. Kennedy is first and foremost an exceptional educator who is creative in her practice and always puts her students first. We are so blessed to have her at St. Francis Xavier School and I am proud to say she is my colleague.”
No stranger to athletics herself, Werre became the ACAC’s all-time rebound leader in her fifth and final year with the Rattlers – where she also completed a Bachelor of Education. She went on to close out her career with 1,053 rebounds, 132 more than former record holder Mary-Jean Ritchie.
Werre still dedicates her time to the Rattlers as a scorekeeper during the athletics season and even coached McCoy’s junior varsity girls basketball team this year.
“It was a pretty crazy year, that’s for sure,” she said, adding she plans to continue giving back to the community in each role next year. “I wasn’t born here but I was raised here basically my whole life. Being affected from all the teachers growing up, from kindergarten to Grade 12 and into college has been awesome. Being able to give my students those opportunities to be in the community in Medicine Hat — we have fantastic facilities and experts through the academy. We got to go watch the Rattlers play provincials, so I brought my students to that. Hopefully it shows them what it means to be a student-athlete and hopefully makes them want to do that when they’re older.”
