Marc Dagenais
Marc Dagenais was born in Mirabel, Quebec, a primary French-speaking province of Canada. As a kid, Marc practiced many sports but baseball was his favorite. In 1989, at age 13, his parents decided to sign-up his younger sister for softball and Marc thought that coaching softball could be fun so he offered to help out. That day, Marc's life changed forever.
Marc immediately felt in love with coaching. He felt in love with "helping others" and found extreme self-satisfaction in helping young athletes get better, develop their skills and improve their game. That's the day he quit baseball because he found something more fulfilling and that he enjoyed even more. He never looked back and he's been coaching softball ever since. During his teen years, Marc became obsessed with the game. He read just about every softball books he could find. He watched all the tapes his dad would allow him to buy. He took all the coaching courses available. As a result, he rapidly became a skilled coach and experienced tremendous success winning a ton of tournaments and championships in addition to receiving numerous "Coach of the Year" awards. At 19 years old, he also became the youngest softball coach in Canada to receive a full level III coaching certification.
However, the best thing that happened during those years was the close relationship he developed with his younger sister as he coached her for several years. They lived a common passion and spent a lot of time together. Today, they share wonderful memories. Marc also experienced success outside of coaching as he was named "Student of the Year" in 1993 when he graduated from high school.
In 1995, after two years at a community college, Marc started an undergraduate degree in physical education at the University of Montreal. He wanted to know more about coaching and training athletes. He finally graduated in 1998 after reading just about every book he could find on the topics of softball, baseball, strength and conditioning, coaching and sports psychology. He also started to work as a personal trainer during that period.
In early 1999, Marc became a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) and decided to "experience life a little" by moving out of province. He first spent a few months in Nova Scotia coaching softball and personal training before moving to Vancouver, BC, to become an assistant softball coach at Simon Fraser University.
During his three years at SFU (2000-2002), they never finished lower than 3rd at the NAIA National Championship in addition to playing several top D-1 schools like Arizona (facing Jennie Finch), Arizona State, Washington, Nebraska, Oregon and Long Beach.
Monica Abbott
Monica Cecilia Abbott pitched for the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers softball team from 2004-2007. She is currently under contract with National Pro Fastpitch's Washington Glory and took the year 2008 off to participate in the Beijing Olympics with Team USA.
During her senior season in college, she set the record for the most strikeouts in a Division I softball season and became the NCAA Division I Softball all-time leader in career wins, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, games started and games pitched. She was the recipient of the 2007 Honda Sports Award for the Top Collegiate Softball Player in the country and was named the 2007 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year. She was also named the 2007 Women's Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year
Dave Paetkau
News Update on Dave
It is due in part to your successes in softball that we are able to announce that Dave has just been named the Hitting and Outfield Coach for the Canadian Women's National Softball Team! For the full article, you can check out Softball Canada's website at http://www.softball.ca/main.asp. We just wanted to share the great news with you and thank you for your support!
ISF World Champion in 1992, Silver Medal in 1996
Pan Am Games Gold Medalist 1991 & 1995
8 year member of Canadian Men's National Fastpitch Team
Canadian National Championship: 1 Gold, 3 Silver, 3 Bronze
2 Time ISC All-World Team, 2 Time All Canadian Team
2005 Team BC coach at Canada Summer Games
Current Head Coach of Denmark Men's National Team
4 year Physical Education Program at University of Saskatchewan
Inducted into Softball BC Hall of Fame
Inducted into Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame