Humber's Ray Chateau named CCAA Athletic Director of The Year
Ray Chateau becomes Humber's second-ever honouree, joining Doug Fox who was selected as the first OCAA athletic director to win the award in 2002.
TORONTO – Humber College athletic director Ray Chateau has been selected as the co-recipient of the 2021-22 CCAA Athletic Director Award by the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) selection committee.
After a year that presented Humber Athletics – and the rest of the country – with challenges never seen before, he was the pillar that helped the Hawks maintain their unparalleled athletic and academic success. Humber excelled in sport and in the classroom despite the ongoing pandemic and the many challenges facing collegiate athletics. Chateau was pivotal in helping the Hawks continue to train and learn, despite the uncertainty of a 2022 OCAA winter season. The Humber High-Performance Centre transitioned to an online format, helping the athletes remain in shape and ready to go for if/when the season did begin.
"Whenever a leader is recognized, it is a reflection of the entire organization and the dedicated people within it," said Chateau. "It is an honour to lead a team at Humber that has made an incredible impact and enacted meaningful change during the most transformative period in the history of college athletics. Each day I am inspired by the efforts of our coaches and staff to build a student-athlete centered program that garners national respect and fulfills our vision and mission as an athletics program. I am extremely appreciative of the Hawk Family for their passionate support, and I am very thankful to Jason Hunter and Ian Crookshank for allowing me the privilege of leading Humber's athletics program."
Humber's reputation for hosting top-tier tournaments is second-to-none, and this season was no different. After the OCAA was unable to find a host for the women's soccer national championship tournament, Chateau stepped up for the conference to host. The event saw five of the top six highest-streamed matches for women's soccer and was deemed a success by all of those that attended. The men's basketball national championship was also hosted by Humber this season and it's extremely rare when one institution hosts multiple national events during the same academic year.
"I want to congratulate Ray on this incredible and well-deserved achievement," said Humber Associate Vice President, Learner and Career Success and Dean of Students, Ian Crookshank. "He is a leader who strives each day to actively live his values of integrity, excellence, and inclusion, which is evident in how he leads and gives back at the local, provincial, and national levels. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to Humber's student-athletes and athletics staff and the advancement of high-performance, collegiate sport across Canada."
"I am very pleased that Ray is being honoured as the top athletic director in the CCAA," Humber Vice-President, Student and Community Engagement Jason Hunter said. "Ray is a true leader in every way and has continued to demonstrate excellent stewardship of varsity sport at Humber College, and provincially and nationally from a system perspective. His commitment to student-athletes – both in competition and academics – is a demonstration of the kind of sports leadership that creates winners on and off the field."
Chateau will be entering his tenth season as the athletic director, after a 12-year tenure as the Humber golf coach where his teams captured a national-best ten CCAA team titles, with 50 overall tournament victories.
The CCAA Athletic Director Award was created in 2000 and recognizes administrative excellence within the campus or college community environment over the past academic year.
Among Chateau's accomplishments in 2021:
- Humber captured four CCAA national championships – in men's soccer, mixed and women's doubles badminton, and men's basketball – the most in the country.
- The Hawks received the CCAA Academic All-Canadian Recognition Award for the second straight year, presented to the institution with the most Academic All-Canadian selections.
- Humber had one CCAA Player of the Year, eight CCAA All-Canadians, and five OCAA Players of the Year selections.
- Provincially, every Humber team program finished in the top-4, concluding the season with 22 provincial podium finishes.
- Among Humber's 11 provincial titles, four were captured within hours of each other. On March 17, Humber became the only school in the history of the OCAA to win a provincial title in both disciplines of basketball and volleyball and it all happened on the same night.
- Chateau oversaw a well-organized return to play for Humber's student-athletes and also coordinated the return of fans to Humber sporting events while dealing with COVID-19 protocols.
- After provincial restrictions prohibited practices and training, the OCAA was on the verge of cancelling the winter season in its entirety. Chateau and the Senior Leadership Committee brought everyone together to come up with a plan to play the season with numerous contingency plans to give OCAA student-athletes an opportunity to play – something they desperately deserved.
- In December 2021, Chateau brought forward Humber's grave concerns about the outdated language in the CCAA operating code regarding transgender student-athletes and participation in varsity sports. The OCAA membership supported the motions brought forward by Humber and a special meeting of the CCAA was convened in January 2022 to amend Article 5, Section 16. In a landmark decision, the CCAA, revised the language to allow student-athletes to compete on the sports team that corresponds with either their sex assigned at birth or their gender identity.
- Boasting the largest varsity lineup in the country with 20 programs, Humber Athletics features over 250 student-athletes that require as much academic support as they do athletic support. With that in mind, Chateau was influential in adding a second full-time varsity academic coordinator for the 2022 season.
