The Last Word
We all know Canada's amateur athletes are chronically underfunded and largely ignored. Fundraiser Jane Roos says our athletes are worth an investment.
By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun
I've got 25 bucks and I'm in the market for a high jumper, or a decathlete, or maybe a field hockey player.
Gender doesn't matter, only that he or she is Canadian and they need a hand and oh, Lord, do they need a hand.
Canadians chronically underfund soldiers and athletes, precisely the people who yearn to represent us most.
Maybe it's a reflection of some sort of self-loathing. Maybe, in our bloodless Canadian way, we see a drive to excel as stepping out of the crowd which, you must admit, isn't very Canadian behaviour at all.
Jane Roos is working to change that, and me and my 25 bucks want in.
Roos was a heptathlete until an automobile accident in her final year of high school ended her competitive athletic career. A friend died in that accident and it changed Jane Roos as well.
"I learned very quickly that life is short and that you should live your passion," she said.
For the past four years, Roos has been helping Canadian athletes live theirs.
She raises money for amateur athletes in need, and finding need is never hard. Her organization, www.seeyouinathens.com estimates 70% of our amateur athletes live below the poverty line.
You could write every day about our crippling indifference to our athletes.
TRAINING MATERIAL
Canadian elite athletes have this funny word for a training material they can sometimes afford. They call it food.
"I was one of the first athletes to be carded in Canada," said Deb Vankiekebelt, a 1972 Olympian who has worked with Roos to raise money. "I received $1,500 a year. Now, athletes can get $13,000 a year but with the cost of equipment and coaching and accommodation, they might be able to buy less than we did."
Canadian athletes work cheap. They make do with less coaching. They skip meals. They sleep in airports rather than take hotel rooms and we don't care ... unless they win something.
Roos' organization has been a registered charity only since October but she has nonetheless managed to raise $1.2 million.
Tomorrow, www.seeyouinathens.com is throwing the latest in a run of successful fundraisers, a $50-a-plate cocktail evening that will be attended by 40 past, present and future Olympians. The event is at the TD Bank Tower, 66 Wellington St., 39th floor and tickets as they say, are still available, either at the door or through the www.seeyouinathens.com website. If you want to donate through the website, that's fine too.
Here's the twist.
When you give, they give you more than a tax receipt. They give you the name of the athlete you helped. "It's like," Vankiekebelt said, "you're helping to adopt them."
But isn't funding athletes the job of the government?
"I think it's everyone's job," Roos said. "How can we tell our kids to chase their dreams and not support them?"
Now, there are endless places for us to put our money and each one of them is worthy.
We give to fight cancer and diabetes. When put beside the plight of sick kids or a decaying environment, the needs of a middle-distance runner from a middle class home seems pretty lean.
EMISSARIES
But these kids are our emissaries, they wear our colours and they ask not for wealth, but for the staples. They repay every penny a thousandfold, not necessarily through medals but through endeavour.
Jane Roos is righter than coffee with cream. When we invest, however modestly, in excellence, we put truth to the things we tell our kids every day: You are bright, you are gifted, you can be anything you want.
That's worth 25 bucks to me.
How about you?
