Bautista sinks Yanks with 10th-inning blast,

CIBC Team Next is helping Canada’s athletes jumpstart their careers

Getting caught up in the excitement of watching the world’s best athletes at the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games can make it easy to forget how much is required for them to get there. Athletes and their families have undergone years of sacrifices — personal and financial.

As the Lead Partner of the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games, CIBC has stepped in to help. In 2013, the bank announced CIBC Team Next, a $2-million investment — and the first of its kind in Canada — to help the 67 amateur athletes working hard to represent Canada now and in the future.

“It’s one of the programs I’m most proud of,” says Monique Giroux, CIBC’s vice-president of sponsorship marketing and strategy. “We wanted to create something unique that would support up-and-coming athletes as we recognized a gap at that level in funding.”

“As the Lead Partner of the Games, we had the opportunity to create some legacy initiatives. We wanted to do something for the athletes.”

MORE THAN FUNDING

Through CIBC Team Next, each athlete receives $5,000 a year for three years through 2016. But the program, created by CIBC with partners Athletes CAN, the association of Canada’s national team athletes, and the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario, is about more than just funding. It’s also about creating a unique community of seasoned and up-andcoming athletes who get to know and support each other through a mentorship program as well as through workshops and forums.

“I honestly, truly, from my heart can’t say enough good things about it, because it’s important to me to support our up-and-coming athletes,” says Paralympic wheelchair racer and five-time Canadian champion Josh Cassidy. “Nations put money into the athletes who are going to give them the medal — and anything can happen in sports in the end,” he says. “For a corporation to recognize the importance of the up-and-comers, giving them the support and the network for them to excel, that’s priceless.”

Cassidy is one of nine mentors; others include triathlete Simon Whitfield, gymnast Kyle Shewfelt, boxer Mary Spencer, canoe-kayaker Mark de Jonge, soccer star Kara Lang, track and field great Bruny Surin, and swimmers Stephanie Dixon and Benoit Huot — each one a national, international, Olympic or Paralympic athlete. Each has several up-and-coming athletes to mentor.

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Both sides benefit from the relationship. “It’s also great for the mentors to be able to give back to a community we gained so much from,” says Dixon. “It’s an incredible experience for me. Being able to support these athletes and have a little window to their journey and their successes and to feel I have a purpose and a value in this community again means so much to me as well.”

All of the program’s 67 athletes also receive advice to enhance their lives and prepare them for life after sports — help with personal finances, academic and career planning, social-media training, public speaking and more. Through annual forums, they can share experiences and get support from other athletes and coaches.

One thing Giroux says CIBC wasn’t counting on was how much of a community this group of athletes would form with each other.

“CIBC Team Next is its own community now and everyone supports each other,” she says. “It’s multi-sport. And I love that it brings paraand able-bodied athletes and mentors together.”

To all the young mentees, CIBC Team Next is, as wheelchair basketball athlete Nikola Goncin says, “awesome.” In fact, the athletes formed their own Facebook group after they were officially named and met one another in November 2013. It’s been their go-to place to connect during the Games. “Everyone’s posting how they did and when they compete,” says Goncin. “CIBC Team Next has made it super easy for all involved to get tickets for everyone’s sport, to support, to watch. It’s almost like strangers have come together by the power of sport.”

THE NEXT GENERATION

As part of its sponsorship, CIBC has also pledged to support budding athletes with Kid-Sport, a $1-million multi-year national program that helps remove some of the financial barriers keeping young kids out of organized sports.

“They’re national, very grassroots and help kids access sports who otherwise can’t afford equipment or registration fees,” says Giroux. “The Games are going to come and go. We wanted to make an impact on the sporting culture in Canada after the Games are gone.”

The program is definitely making an impact. During the recent Pan Am Games, CIBC Team Next athletes took home 30 medals, including Canada’s first two gold medals, which came from kayaker Michelle Russell and synchronized swimmer Jacqueline Simoneau.

“I feel like we’ve adopted these 67 athletes,” says Giroux. “It’s been a wonderful experience all round. We’re all behind them, we’re all cheering for them. We want them to be successful — in their sport but also in life.”