Third-year women’s volleyball outside hitter Stephanie Galitzine didn’t expect to win the President’s Cup at the 24th Annual Camosun Chargers Athletic Awards Ceremony. In fact, it wasn’t until Camosun president Sherri Bell announced her name that Galitzine even realized she had been nominated.
“I was standing on stage shaking,” says Galitzine, who is in the Sport and Fitness Leadership program. “I didn’t know I was getting it.”
After a few days of reflection, the fact that she was recognized with this award has begun to sink in.
“I’ve had the past couple days to relax and reflect on it all,” she says. “It’s just amazing.”
One person who wasn’t surprised by her win was Chargers women’s volleyball head coach Brent Hall.
“They weigh a bunch of criteria, including academics and athletic performance. They also look at community involvement and the whole person,” explains Hall. “Through all the initiatives she was a part of, I think they found she was a pretty clear choice.”
With classes over, Galitzine is now looking forward to starting an internship at a cancer care clinic, InspireHealth, as a student exercise therapist. Through this position, she will get to sit in on consultations and help lead exercise classes and group walks. She admits that this is a delightful deviation from her original goals.
“I came into it thinking I would want to work in high performance in the end, but I’ve quickly realized I’m the opposite,” says Galitzine. “I would absolutely love to work on the more medical side of things, so this will be my first taste of it in an employment kind of way rather than educational.”
In addition to her internship, Galitzine is looking forward to focusing on I Am Strong, an initiative she co-created with her teammate and best friend Katie Wayling.
“That was something that’s very near and dear to my heart,” says Galitzine. “It’s an initiative that I started, basically trying to create positive fitness experiences for young girls, from noticing, and from personal experience for myself, there can be a lot of negativity and struggle around that sort of thing. So, the idea is to empower girls and build their self-confidence and to create positive experiences for them around that.”
In addition to this, Galitzine has managed to maintain a 9.0 GPA while juggling her athletic commitments.
“I’ve worked hard for that GPA. I’m very academic. I really enjoy school, so that’s part of where that comes from,” she says. “Volleyball is six times a week from the end of August to either February or March, depending on how we do. So we practice Monday through Thursday and then play on Fridays and Saturdays.”
This intense schedule has led Galitzine to make the difficult decision to not return to volleyball next year.
“I have so much respect for the program and I have no regrets playing those three years,” she says. “It has shaped me so much. It was just my time to move on and focus on other things.”
While her decision not to return wasn’t a complete surprise to her coach, Hall admits that she’ll be missed.
“She’s got big shoes to fill,” he says. “She was an important part of our team and we loved having her. It wasn’t a total surprise, just knowing how much she takes on and how much other stuff she does outside of playing volleyball. She’s going to fill her time doing lots of cool stuff.”