When all nine of Richmond’s secondary schools converted to Grades 8-12 in the mid-1990s, Hugh McRoberts became an instant athletic powerhouse. It also turned out to be a pipeline for future national team athletes.
The Richmond Sports Wall of Fame officially inducts its 2017 class Saturday (11 a.m.) at city hall. Four of the five athletes being honoured are McRoberts alumni.
Rower Darcy Marquardt, hammer thrower Jennifer Joyce and swimmer Brian Johns remarkably graduated within three years of each other. Wrestler and now UFC fighter Arjan Bhullar followed in 2004.
All went on to excel in sports that are typically not offered at most high schools. But the sports culture within McRoberts and the encouragement to be involved helped pave their way to success.
It was the French Immersion program that brought Marquardt and Joyce to the Williams Road school. They left their Palmer and Richmond High catchment areas respectively.
While Joyce was establishing herself as one of the country’s top up-and-coming throwers with the Kajaks Track and Field Club, she was an outstanding athlete who thrived in a number of sports.
She was a Team B.C. soccer player and played for the McRoberts senior girls volleyball team that was top five in the province. When her busy schedule forced her to stop playing for the powerhouse basketball team, her decision rippled beyond the school.
“The basketball culture was so strong that I had parents come up and talk to me about making a terrible decision. It was so serious. It’s like ‘everyone it will be okay if I don’t play basketball,’” smiled the now 37-year-old.
Joyce certainly did okay with hoops no longer in her life.
She earned a full-ride scholarship to Cal-Berkeley where she was a two-time All-American and Pac-10 hammer throw champion. Her international achievements included winning silver at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
Marquardt was the first of five from her family to come through McRoberts. She was actually a member of the school’s initial graduating class back in 1997.
“We were the rulers of the school for three years. “We went from a Grade 10 to a Grade 11 school with no Grade 12s. I remember we were upset because we didn’t get the usual Grade 10 (grad) boat cruise so they gave us one,” laughed Marquardt.
“I played volleyball in the earlier years then rugby in Grades 11-12."
Encouraged by her parents, she was involved in many sports including Richmond Girls Softball, Connaught Skating and Richmond Cosom Hockey. She also became a certified lifeguard and worked at Watermania when it first opened.
However, it was when she enrolled at UVic that her life changed forever. She was convinced by a friend to attend a novice rowing class at Elk Lake which also happened to be home of the national rowing team.
“I just wanted to get involved in something at UVic and it’s one of those things of being in the right place and the right time. I was brushing shoulders with these athletes that were going to the (Olympic) Games in Sydney and I had no idea. It just put me in that culture and normalized it for me.”
Marquardt soon realized her 5-foot-10 frame and athleticism made her a natural for the sport. Her coach at UVic — Rick Crawley — encouraged her to switch from port to starboard side which fast-tracked her to the national team in 2002.
She would go on to compete in three Olympic Games — capped by a silver medal in women’s eight in London in 2012. In 2006, she partnered with Jane Thornton to win gold in women’s pairs at the World Championships.
Today, she is retired and a busy young mother of three — married to former two-time Olympic swimmer Richard Hortness. The couple first met at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
Joyce stayed at Cal-Berkeley as part of the coaching staff for five years, while continuing her competitive career, and later moved to Kamloops where she worked at the National Throws Centre. She is now a Lead Coach for the Canadian Sport Institute in Victoria. She appreciates everything her former coaches did for her including Trish Nicholson. She invited the longtime McRoberts teacher to Saturday’s ceremony.
“So much of my development was done here in Richmond so this (induction) is huge for me,” Joyce added. “Trish Nicholson was such an important person in my development and one of the reasons I work with a high school program now.”
Joining the four McRoberts grads as part of the 2017 Wall of Fame induction class are: Athlete — Andrew Mavis (basketball); Builder — Nancy Carey (field hockey); Officials — Kanwal Singh Neel (athletics); Coaches — Glenn Kishi (football) and Dr. Doug Nielsen (softball).
