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Volleyball star returns to Athabasca to pay it forward

Nathan Bennett got to coach his former volleyball coach’s own twin volleyballers at three-day camp
BennettMorrison
A proud father and coach, Sean Morrison, left, had a chance to give former student Nathan Bennett a helping hand coaching his own two sons as Bennett, who is now head coach of the University of Fraser Valley Cascades men’s volleyball team, hosted a Cascades volleyball camp held at EPC Aug. 15-18. Pictured, Sean Morrison, Keil Morrison, Bennett, and Ewan Morrison on the last day of the camp Aug. 18.

ATHABASCA – It's a story of coming full circle, some might say, but to former Edwin Parr Composite high school volleyball player Nathan Bennett, it’s about paying it forward too, but there’s a little more to it than that. 

Bennett, a former local volleyball phenom, returned to Athabasca earlier this month to host a three-day volleyball camp at EPC on behalf of the University of Fraser Valley Cascades from Abbotsford, B.C. Three co-ed sessions for three age groups from 12-18 were held at EPC Aug. 15-18. Bennett has been leading similar camps since he was hired as head coach of the Cascades men’s volleyball team in 2019. 

This camp wasn’t a typical one though, as Bennett took on long-time EPC coach Sean Morrison as his assistant. Morrison coached Bennett in high school and now as time, luck, or perhaps fate would have it, Morrison’s twin 16-year-old sons Ewan and Keil, local volleyball phenoms in their own rights, attended the camp, to not only hone some of the foundational skills engrained in Bennett by their father in the late 90s, but to learn how to take it to the next level as they work to finish high school and look forward to competing at the collegiate level afterwards. 

“It’s come full circle, it is kind of cool,” Bennett said in an interview Aug. 18, just before heading out onto the court for the last session of the last day of camp, which is a fundraiser for the Cascades’ program. 

“Sean Morrison and Bonnie Speers are the two people that I owe everything as far as volleyball. They got me into it,” said Bennett, who added he looked at volleyball as a potential career as early as Grade 9. 

The Barcelona Olympics in 1992 helped shape that dream as well, showing Bennett that volleyball could be a viable option for him as a career. 

“I got lucky, I literally just got lucky,” he said. “In Grade 9, I was tall, but I was horrible, I wasn’t very good in comparison to everybody else at training, but I had potential.” 

The rest is history. 

Bennett has put a lot of volleyball behind him since leaving Athabasca after graduating, including representing Great Britain internationally from 2008 to 2012, including at the 2012 Olympics in London. He played professionally in Europe for over a decade before that following a very successful five-year stint with the University of Alberta Golden Bears, which included a national championship in 1997. 

Afterwards he took on a coaching role for the Capilano Blues men’s team in B.C. He moved on to become assistant coach of the Thompson Rivers University women’s team until 2018, then lead the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s team to a successful season the year after that, before returning to B.C. to coach the UFV men’s team in 2019. 

For Morrison, who is now principal at the Centre for Alternative & Virtual Education in Athabasca, it’s always gratifying to see students reach such levels of success in their chosen field, and to now see his own kids trying to attain similar goals, it is doubly so, he said. 

“He knows my kids, he’s been around them, but he’s never truly coached them or anything like that,” said Morrison, who currently coaches the club team Ewan and Keil are a part of in the city. “So, it has kind of come full circle for him coaching my kids … It is totally cool to look and say I coached him, and now he’s coaching my kids. It’s really awesome, it’s a good feel-good story.” 

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