SPIN spurs sports spin-offs

What event this summer could have the most far-reaching effect on the future of amateur and professional sports in BC -- and, indeed, Canada? No, it’s not the Beijing Olympics or the Canuck’s new lineup. It’s the opening of the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence (PISE) at Camosun College’s Interurban campus north of Victoria. Here’s where BC’s future recreation centre managers, sport coaches and sport educators will be trained, and where new systems, processes and products for sport and other markets will be developed.

This impressive new Institute houses the college’s Sport Innovation Centre (SPIN) and the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific. Its impact on our young people and their physical fitness is sure to be enormous. In fact, it’s bound to result in increased Canadian success in competitions such as the Olympics. Yet, were it not for establishment of Camosun College’s BC Regional Innovation Chair in Sport Technology by the provincially-funded Leading Edge Endowment Fund (LEEF), all this might not have happened.

Now, if you were the Camosun College administration, where would you look for the right person to be the new Regional Chair in Sport Technology? Of course you’d interview people from the world of sport. But when materials engineer Tim Walzak “threw his hat in the ring,” Camosun College President Dr. Liz Ashton and Vice President, Business Development Paul McGeachie knew he was right for the job, even though he didn’t have a sport background. Why? Because, (to borrow a well-known sport phrase) he has “an impressive track record.” Dr. Walzak is one of Canada’s leading experts in transferring technology from academic institutions to industry, and has decades of success in building industry and community partnerships of the kind the new Institute needs. And, of course, he loves sports!

Dr. Walzak came to BC in the fall of 1998 to be President of the University of Victoria’s Innovation Development Corporation (IDC). He’d been in an equivalent position at the University of Western Ontario in London, where earlier he had earned his Ph.D. in materials engineering, and headed that university’s research park. Recognizing the benefits that university talent can offer Canadian industry, he and his staff built productive partnerships with hundreds of companies. And during his subsequent years at the University of Victoria he emphasized “regional development,” overseeing services to the University, as well as to Camosun College, Malaspina University College (now Vancouver Island University), North Island College and Royal Roads University. He even built a partnership with the National Research Council (NRC) that led to the Innovation Development Corporation’s becoming a de facto business development office for the Council’s facilities on southern Vancouver Island. This is where things stood when the LEEF Chair at Camosun College beckoned.

“We’re concentrating on the development and commercialization of technologies with a sport focus,” he explains. “They include lighter, more robust sensors for monitoring athletic performance in real time, as well as new sport-related clothing and textiles. However – and this is important – we’ll always seek broader applications for any of our new technologies. This is why it is so essential for us to build community and industry partnerships.

“We must look beyond sport if our work is to have a real impact. For example, say we develop a new material for some high performance athletes. That’s fine as far as it goes, but that may not be a very large market. So we have to ask what other applications the novel material might have.”

He cites a current example, involving a Victoria firm that makes wet suits and dry suits for military applications and commercial diving. “The Canadian Sport Centre Pacific knows a lot about thermal management for human performance in sport,” he says. “What does a dry suit need? It needs good thermal management. So part of our applied research program will focus on developing new materials for better thermal management for the suits.”

There’s another vital aspect to the work of his Camosun College group. It has to do with overall human health. “Graduates of our programs in sport management are going to be taught ways to use technology to improve people’s access to exercise opportunities, and to keep them physically active throughout their lives. Our goal is not just to produce podium athletes; it’s to produce an active and healthy population.”

To learn more about the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence (PISE) and Camosun College’s Sport Innovation Centre (SPIN) visit www.pacificsportinstitute.ca .