WEEK 49: ERIN McALEENAN

Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

I grew up in Sussex, New Brunswick. My dad was a high school teacher and the senior boy’s basketball coach, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom while my brother and I grew up. I played basketball, soccer, volleyball, and badminton with my school teams. I completed all my swimming levels and had a brief stint as a downhill ski racer before becoming a ski instructor. I loved sports growing up. They gave me an outlet for my energy, but also gave me an opportunity to learn new skills and work with teammates towards a common goal.

Basketball was always my favorite sport, so after high school I went on to play university basketball at Acadia while completing my Bachelor of Science. I was hired as an Associate Faculty Member at Trinity College School (TCS) in Port Hope, ON after I graduated. That’s when I started coaching high school girls’ and boys’ basketball. During my second year there, I commuted back and forth to Peterborough to complete my Bachelor of Education and went on to teach high school Math and Science at TCS for 4 years after that.

Following my six years at TCS, I decided to pack up and move to Edmonton to take my Masters in Coaching at the University of Alberta. It was there that I was given the opportunity to learn a lot about professional coaching at the university level in Canada. I completed my Masters in 2 years, and then stayed on to work in the Athletic Department and the Phys. Ed. Dept. at U of A for a third year before being hired to the Head Coach position for the Women’s Basketball Team at the University of Lethbridge.

I spent 3 years as Head Coach at the University of Lethbridge, before being offered the Head Coach position at York University in the summer of 2015. I am currently in my fifth year as Head Coach at York, and I love it!

I have also had the opportunity to represent Canada on several Canadian National teams over the last nine years. I have been a team manager, as well as an assistant coach on Junior National Teams, and the assistant coach for the Pan Am Games Team in 2011. It is an absolute honor to represent Canada on the international basketball stage.

Please share a story about an internal or external barrier you have faced. 

I struggle with perfectionism. It has been very challenging to deal with as a professional coach, as I am not sure that the perfect game is even possible in my head. Both Head Coaching jobs I have had have been in programs that hadn’t had much success before I got there, and time had to be spent rebuilding

the program. This is challenging for anyone, but for a perfectionist, not winning is always seen as a failure. This can be very hard, with a lot of lows, over the course of a season that runs from September to March each year.

How did you overcome that barrier? What skills did you develop in sport that helped you overcome your barrier?

I continue to strive to overcome perfectionism by changing my self-talk. This is a constant process I have had to work through in order to not be so hard on myself. I have also worked hard to focus on process-oriented goals, so that my self-worth is not derived from winning and losing.

Sport has taught me that if I work as hard as I can, and I work with others, we can accomplish great things together. But it has also taught me to be purposeful and have a plan to work towards achieving my goals.

If you had one word to describe your character, experiences or philosophy what would it be? Why?

PURPOSEFUL

Once you have a goal, make a plan. Work hard and stick to it through the challenges. I am a very passionate person, so between that and being a perfectionist, I’ve really had to stay focused on being purposeful. Once I’ve decided what my goal is, I make a plan, and I go for it. I make smaller goals to help me reach that goal and try to stay the course as I face different obstacles along the way. Sport has really helped me learn how important this is. Through many team and individual goals

If you wanted to motivate a young female athlete to #BuildHerUp, what quote would you use? Why?

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

I think this quote has a lot of meaning to me because it speaks to focusing on the process. You must fail to succeed. You must fail a lot. This makes it so much more important to stay focused on the plan that you have and to be confident that, if you stick with it through the failures and continue to work hard, that is what will lead you to find success.