The Camosun College women’s basketball team is preparing for its upcoming season, which starts on November 1. Chargers women’s basketball guard Tessa Lannon-Paakspuu, who is a fourth-year Sport and Fitness Leadership student, is in her fifth and final year with the team. She says that she’s really excited about this season.
“We have a new coach, and a lot of new, young girls,” says Lannon-Paakspuu. “We have potential to go to nationals this year. This season we have a lot of opportunity for success, and [coach Justin Thiessen] is helping us set that up really well.”
Thiessen started with the Chargers in July; he arrived in Victoria from China, where he had been running a successful basketball academy for several years. Thiessen has been coaching basketball for almost two decades and has high hopes for his new coaching job and for the season.
“I think with any season, you hope to win a championship,” says Thiessen. “But these guys are fantastic. They really help each other and encourage each other; usually that communication is a goal in itself.”
The Chargers teams have competed in more than 100 provincial and national championships and have had over 50 medal-winning finishes in their combined histories, and that puts a certain pressure on the women basketball players to keep that record climbing.
“Right now, we’re really just using our skills together,” says Lannon-Paakspuu. “We’re not a very large team. Not whatsoever. But we use our abilities to run the ball really quick, and then key in our specific skills and abilities, allowing each girl to play how she can. We are just playing basketball, which is great.”
Lannon-Paakspuu thinks that what makes this year special is the comfortable environment amongst the players.
“The atmosphere of this team is just great,” she says. “Every single girl gets along with each other; we have no conflicting personalities or difficult people on the team. We all just flow so well together.”
Thiessen says that good communication between the coach and the players on the team is evident this year.
“If we talk to each other, if we check in, if we commit to communicate, then there is nothing they won’t be able to do,” he says.
Lannon-Paakspuu says that the players practice five days a week.
“We have our team lift every Monday, and we also lift on our own time,” she says. “Plus, we try to go to the gym whenever we have a moment.”
The whole team is looking forward to its first regular season games; however, as this is her final season, Lannon-Paakspu is also looking forward to a life without playing basketball—at least for a while.
“I jumped into basketball and college right after high school,” she says. “I’ve had five very, very full years. I think I need to do a basic 9-to-5, and just enjoy my life for a while.”
Lannon-Paakspuu says that if she were to offer advice to a woman basketball player just starting out—say, a Camosun student considering joining the Chargers basketball team—it would be to just enjoy themselves.
“The years go by really fast, then once it’s done, it’s done,” she says. “You might as well have fun with it.”