You can go out with class, even if you don’t win, but it’s far better to do both. Former national-team captain Charles Parkinson did just that, concluding his 13 seasons of coaching the Camosun College men’s volleyball team by guiding the Chargers to the Canadian Colleges Athletic Association championship Sunday in Quebec City.
“This is the kind of exit everybody dreams about and it came true for me,” said retiring Camosun men’s mentor Parkinson, who has provided the colour commentary for CBC at six consecutive Summer Olympics from Atlanta 1996 to Rio 2016.
“It’s awesome. But it’s not about me, it’s about the players.”
And they were fine as Camosun went 3-0 in nine consecutive sets to win the Canadian championship, capping it with a championship game victory over host Titans de Limoilu to give Parkinson the second national title in his tenure at Camosun.
Brazilian-recruit Vitor Pereira capped his standout Camosun College career by being named national championship MVP in his third season with the team in four years, the latter due to the pandemic.
“This feels really great in my last season,” said Pereira, a native of Belo Horizonte, who will graduate with a degree in business administration.
“Moments like this is why I came here. It has been absolutely worth it. I got the [MVP] award but I couldn’t have without my teammates.”
One of those is fellow Brazilian Chargers player Eduardo Bida, a native of Uberlandia, who was named for the national tournament first all-star team.
Brazil is famously known for soccer, but is also a very strong volleyball nation, with its players playing around the world. Brazil has won five Olympic gold medals, three silvers and two bronze in men’s and women’s indoor volleyball and three golds, six silvers and three bronze in Olympic men’s and women’s beach volleyball.
“It’s the second sport in Brazil but the leading sport [soccer] is like a religion,” said Pereira.
Claremont-grad Lorenz Vogel was named to the second all-star team while Morgan Humphreys and Dale McConnell join Pereira as Chargers graduating as national champions.
Coach Shane Hyde’s Vancouver Island University Mariners, meanwhile, won the CCAA women’s national volleyball championship for the fourth consecutive time, beating the Douglas College Royals in the all-sa国际传媒 national final in Charlottetown, P.E.I. Ukranian star import Yevgeniya Lytvynenko of the Mariners, with her mind also on her family back in her homeland and raising money through GoFundMe for her refugee sister and nephew and niece, was named national tournament MVP.
