Kicking Career Day up a notch at Holy Cross
Mason Corcoran is interested in a career in the sports field, maybe as a physiotherapist, personal trainer, or athletic director.
The 15-year-old Grade 11 student at Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School is taking part in the Health and Wellness Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) program, which offers students opportunities to learn more about the career pathways in health and wellness, including working with high-performance athletes.
Erin Gauthier teaches the Health and Wellness SHSM class at Holy Cross. She looks for new and innovative ways to engage students. When she got the opportunity to take her class to Toronto to spend a day with the Toronto Argonauts, she knew it was a perfect fit for her students.
So, on October 3, she and students travelled down the QEW, where they spent the day with players, front office, and back office staff, learning about the many career opportunities available in professional sports.
As part of the day, students met with former Argo defensive back, now Player Relations Advisor Matt Black, who spoke about the importance of giving back.
“He told students it’s about more than being an athlete, about playing games, there’s much more to their jobs,” said Gauthier. “It’s about the other things they do; visiting hospitals and reaching out to the community.”
After meeting with Black from the front office, students met with trainers, participating in stretching and conditioning exercises and drills. Then they met with the team’s chefs.
“It was really interesting to learn about the different examples of food that they have to feed the team,” said Gauthier. “Even the meals for different positions within the team. (The head chef) talked about what he needed to prepare for linebackers for optimal performance for practices and game day – I’m not sure they teach you that in culinary school.”
Mason said the session with the chefs was enlightening.
“One thing that surprised me was how the chefs work for the Toronto Argonauts,” he said. “The head chef was explaining to us the type of diets that their players eat, as well as showing us that players in different positions actually consume very different foods.”
The day ended with a panel session with players, who talked about the importance of planning for what comes after life on the gridiron. CFL players earns an average of $100,000-$130,000, less than half of the amount rookies are paid in the NFL, and the CFL’s top paid player Zach Collaro earns 10 per cent of the NFL’s top-paid player Dak Prescott’s $60M annual paycheque. That means they need to consider second careers when the time comes to hang up their cleats.
“They’re teachers, lawyers, it was really cool for the students to hear that they have backup plans,” said Gauthier.
Back to Mason, who had high praise for the day trip to Toronto.
“Before attending the trip, I expected to be learning about the many different jobs and things that need to be done, for a professional sports team to run smoothly. Overall, it was a very interesting experience, and I learned many things.”
Arts, Culture and Entrepreneur SHSM
The day before, students in the Arts and Culture and Entrepreneur SHSM programs had a special experience as well, when Jenn Harper, founder of Cheekbone Beauty, visited the school to share her journey with students.
Melanie Contini, Program Chair of Arts and Social Sciences at Holy Cross, reached out to Harper in May, asking her to visit her class in the coming school year. Harper grew up in St. Catharines, and shared her experience with students, including the challenges she faced along the way and her road to recovery.
It was January 2015 when Harper popped out of bed at 2 a.m. after having a vivid dream about happy little Indigenous girls covered in lip gloss. She’d had an epiphany: She would make lip gloss and start a foundation in the name of her grandmother, a residential school survivor.
Two years later, Cheekbone Beauty was born. In her pitch to the dragons on CBC’s Dragons Den last year, she described Cheekbone beauty as “culturally appropriate, highly inclusive, and relatable, helping Indigenous youth and real people see themselves in a beauty brand.”
“I wanted to be a part of the solution and change the narrative for Indigenous people,” Harper told the dragons, before ultimately turning down a deal.
Contini admits to “fangirling” a little during Harper’s visit to Holy Cross, as the entrepreneur shared how she took a side job selling lip gloss into a business including sustainably manufactured lip, cheek, and eye makeup now available online and in Sephora.
“What’s great about bringing (Harper) in is that her business aligns with our core values,” Contini said, referring to Niagara Catholic’s commitment to ethically sourcing products.
Contini also credits Holy Cross Principal Adele Filice for supporting her in bringing Harper to Holy Cross.
“I thought this would be a perfect fit for SHSM,” Contini said. “It was an upbeat message to students, telling them to have hope, don’t give up, keep trying. I’m so happy I took a risk and emailed (Harper), and Adele has been very supportive of me reaching out to her.”
“Her story was such a beautiful story.”