Laval head coach, Nathan Grant played at the University of Winnipeg. Marc had spent two years on staff with the UofW and spoke with his colleague about Grant. Coming to Quebec City, Marc made some inquires and reached out to explore the opportunity of coaching at Laval. He interviewed for a position and was offered an assistant coach post with the Laval men’s program. Coaching was always in Marc’s DNA and his love of coaching started young. When he was 15 years old, he suffered an injury to his knee. His younger brother, 12 years old at the time, was playing for a team that needed a coach, so Marc stepped in to help coach, and he says he has been coaching ever since. Marc’s Summary of the USPORTS National Championship Laval University Rouge et Or were selected to host the 2024 USport National Championships. Below is Marc’s summary of the Championship week. We had an up and down end to the regular season and eventually lost to Concordia in the RSEQ semi-final. We knew that unless we were conference champions we would be the 8 seed; and the coaching staff knew that it was pretty much a guaranteed match-up against Victoria who was, more or less, the best team in the country all year long. During the week between the bracket being released and our first game on the Friday night, it was more or less business as usual. We kept the same routine and wanted to make sure that we were in a rhythm going into the game. We knew that we had a chance and had some match-ups in our favor, but with their roster which included the national player of the year, would be handful. We also knew that we had a huge home-court advantage. The PEPS is usually pretty full for a regular season game, but for all three of our games it was sold out, standing room only. We have the best fans in the country and they showed up in some huge numbers. Every bucket that we scored was followed by a huge wall of sound just coming down. We ended up winning against U.Vic. by 6. I had already started scouting Dalhousie earlier in the week (who would end up winning their game and thus being our opponent) and I liked our match-up for the national semi-final. The mood in the room was calm after our game, the guys were excited that we won but we knew that it was back into the frying pan the next night. At nationals everyone is good, really good and no games are ever guaranteed. We had just beaten the Canada West Champions and next we would see the AUS champs; so we knew that it was going to be a war. We ended up controlling most of the game, and won by 11. Afterwards it was the same deal; everyone was happy, excited but calm at the same time. Getting to a national final is a really big deal. We wanted the guys to enjoy the moment that might never come again, but also to know that we were 40 minutes away from finishing the job. We had actually played Queens in our first exhibition of the
season back in September, and lost by a bunch - but we also had a couple injuries and were coming a season where 70% of the roster had changed from the year before. The game was back and forth, with Queens eventually taking the lead by 1 (I think) with about 90 seconds left. We then hit two huge threes and got a couple timely stops, then it was the free-throw game to finish it off. The celebration that followed was a blur, it is definitely one of the best moments of my life and something that I will cherish forever.
Marc is enjoying working with the WOTP (work oriented training program) students and has been encouraged by their progress over the school year. He hopes that he will be able to continue teaching this program in the years to come.
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