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BACK IN THE DAY

Honoring Seneca’s volleyball ace

“CRAZY.” THAT WAS THE WORD on Avery Brevett’s mind when her number was retired by the Seneca Scouts (now the Sting), after a career that saw her win four provincial gold and two national bronze medals in women’s volleyball.

“I was shocked,” the accounting grad says. “I was honoured, but I didn’t think I’d done anything to deserve it.”

That couldn’t be further from the truth. From 1991 to 1995, Avery led Seneca to four Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) titles, along with four bronze-medal games at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) National Championship. Avery was named a CCAA All-Canadian, and, in her final two seasons, earned CCAA All-Star nods. She was twice Seneca’s Female Athlete of the Year. Not bad for a basketball player who walked into a volleyball tryout in high school and made the regional team.

“The running joke is that I was a walk-in,” Avery says. “By the time I came to Seneca, volleyball was my passion. I was ridiculously focused on going to the nationals.”

Earlier this year, Avery was inducted into the CCAA Hall of Fame alongside Frank and Rose Sulatycki, who coached her at Seneca. In 2003, Avery was inducted into the OCAA Hall of Fame, and she was named to the OCAA Women’s Volleyball All-Millennium Team in 2000.

“The coaches at Seneca were bar none the best in the country,” she says. “They developed players and taught us to understand the game, to succeed both on and off the court with conditioning, mental preparation and breathing techniques.”

Avery recalls the great perseverance her team showed when they lost a marathon game to Sherbrooke in the 1995 CCAA semifinal. “We battled and played the best we could,” she remembers. “That game took three hours and five minutes. It was hard to regroup after that, but we came back to win bronze.”

Avery returned to Seneca as an assistant coach from 1995 to 2004, and she was head coach of the Guelph Gryphons from 2004 to 2005. While not as heavily involved in the game now, her time on the court may not be over just yet.

“I love developing players,” she says. “I still have an itch to coach.”

44 RED 2016