Chantal Vallée
Chantal Vallée, one of the all-time winningest coaches in Canadian basketball, has built one of the top women's basketball programs in the country with the University of Windsor Lancers, making eleven straight trips to the OUA final four while earning nine consecutive OUA medals, and capturing five straight CIS national titles in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.
Vallée was named the first Head Coach and General Manager of the Hamilton Honey Badgers on November 21, 2018. She is the first woman to be named as both head coach and general manager of a men’s professional team, and only the second woman to serve as a head coach of a men’s professional basketball team.[1]
Education and early career[edit]
Vallée is a native of Joliette, Quebec. She is a certified level 3 NCCP coach and has a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Quebec-Montreal. She then went on to earn a Master’s of Physical Education degree in Coaching and Sport Psychology from McGill University. Vallée worked as an assistant coach for two seasons at McGill University with their women's basketball program.
She began her professional coaching career as head coach of a men’s AAA level high school program in Quebec that finished fourth in the province. She then served as the head coach of Montreal’s Vanier College Women's Basketball program for three seasons. During that time, Vallée led Vanier to a considerable resurgence, as the team moved from missing the post season into a top-five national power in 2005.
Vallée has spent several seasons as an assistant coach with the Canadian Development and Junior National women’s teams. She also served as an assistant coach at the University of British Columbia for a season.
Professional Coaching Career[edit]
University of Windsor[edit]
Vallée was hired by the University of Windsor in 2005 even though she had never before coached a university team. At the time, they were ranked second-last in Canada; in the 2 years prior to Vallée's arrival, the team had won only 8 of their 60+ games and were known as the "doormat of women's basketball." But Chantal had a dream and a plan and told anyone who would listen that the team would win a Canadian national championship within 5 years! Her passion, belief and determination attracted some of the best Canadian and European student athletes to play for the Windsor Lancers.
Beginning with the 2007-08 season, Vallee lead her team to eleven consecutive trips to the OUA (Ontario University Athletics) finals and medalled nine years in a row.
On March 20, 2011, the Windsor Lancers women's basketball team was crowned Canadian University Champions for the first time in history.[2] From there they went on to win five consecutive national titles, holding the record for most wins in a row.
The 2012-13 team registered a perfect 21-0 record, the first time in OUA women’s basketball history that a team went undefeated since the league went to its expanded schedule.
Hamilton Honey Badgers[edit]
In 2019, Vallée became the first woman to be both a General Manager and a Head Coach of a men’s professional sports team with the CEBL Hamilton Honey Badgers. She also became only the second woman to be named Head Coach of a men’s professional basketball team.[3]
Hamilton finished fourth in the six-team league, with a 10-10 regular season record but radically improved its roster late in the season. The Honey Badgers went on to upset first-place Niagara (15-5) in the first round of the CEBL championship tournament in Saskatoon taking them to the national final. While Hamilton started strong, the host team Saskatchewan Rattlers went on to win (94-83) in the final, handing the Honey Badgers a second place finish in the CEBL inaugural season.[4]
Broadcast personality[edit]
In 2012, Vallée broadened her scope to include the role of television personality and basketball analyst at CTV Sports. There she helped to cover the Canada Basketball portion of the 2012 Olympic Summer Games while working out of the station’s studio in Toronto alongside play-by-play announcer and well known basketball insider Paul Jones. Since then, Vallée has also appeared on TSN, Sportsnet, CBC, CTV and RDS as a basketball analyst, colour commentator and sideline reporter for such events as USports national women's basketball championships, 2016 Summer Olympics and select games during the Toronto Raptors 2019 season.
Motivational speaker and author[edit]
A researcher, speaker, and writer in the discipline of Transformational Leadership, Vallée has delivered hundreds of keynote speeches, and has been retained by more than three dozen companies in a range of industries to advise in the areas of business transformation, leadership coaching, team performance, and people development. She has also published two articles based on her leadership research: Building a Successful University Program in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology in 2005 and Four Keys to Building a Championship Culture in the International Sport Coaching Journal 2016. The principles she researched and found can be applied not only to any field of expertise but to anyone's own personal growth development.
During the 2018/19 season she took a sabbatical from the University of Windsor, to co-author a book with world-renowned coaching success and sport psychology researcher Dr. Gordon Bloom. She spent an intensive 3 months with successful coaches and teams in various sports in Australia and in New Zealand, namely with the famed All Blacks New Zealand rugby team, the winningest sports team of all time. The book is due to be released in 2020.
Awards and honours[edit]
Over the past several years, Vallée has also been honoured with two very prestigious awards. In April 2012, Vallée received the prestigious Athena Award her success as an outstanding business professional, her contributions to the community and her mentoring of future women leaders. In 2012 she also received the ATHENA International Leadership Award, which is presented to a woman, or man, who is honoured for attaining professional excellence, community service, and for actively assisting women in their achievement of professional excellence and leadership skills. Vallée’s work apart from basketball has resulted in her being presented with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee medal in 2013.
Other notable honours include:
- CIS/U Sports National Championship titles in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
- CIS Women’s Basketball Coach of the Year in 2014 and 2015
- OUA Fox 40 Overall Female Coach of the Year in 2009, 2011, 2014
- OUA Women’s Basketball Coach of the Year in 2009, 2011, 2014, 2015
- OUA West Women’s Basketball Coach of the Year in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015
- University of Windsor Gino Fracas Coach of the Year in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015
- WESPY Awards Coach of the Year in 2012 and 2013
- CAAWS Most Influential Woman in Canada, Coach category in 2016
- Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee medal in 2013
- ATHENA International Leadership Award in 2012
References[edit]
- ↑ "Hamilton Honey Badgers Head Coach - Chantal Vallee". www.honeybadgers.ca. Retrieved 2019-07-20.
- ↑ "Chantal Vallée - Head Coach - Women's Basketball - Staff Directory". University of Windsor Athletics. Retrieved 2019-07-20.
- ↑ "Hamilton Honey Badgers Head Coach - Chantal Vallee". www.honeybadgers.ca. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
- ↑ Milton, Steve (2019-12-11). "Steve Milton: Honey Badgers uncertain if coach Chantal Vallée will return for 2020". The Hamilton Spectator. ISSN 1189-9417. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
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