Former Olympian’s success no tall tale

All her athletic life, Michelle Sawatzky-Koop was labelled as too small. But with undaunted persistence, she proved anyone can walk alongside the giants.
The Steinbach, Man. native and former Olympian, as the starting setter with the Canadian women’s national volleyball team, offered a message of hope and hard work while addressing athletes, coaches, and team supporters on hand for the Muskie athletic awards banquet last Wednesday at La Place Rendez-Vous.
“All of us can accomplish more than we think we can,” said Sawatzky-Koop, 33, who didn’t let her 5’6” frame get in the way of competing on the world’s biggest stage in a sport normally dominated by those of longer-legged stature.
“Perseverance is how I got where I was. I had to try harder than everybody else,” she noted. “I was always striving to better my skills and prove they needed me on the court.”
After seeing Sawatzky-Koop speak at the all-Ontario girls’ ‘A’ volleyball championships in Kenora earlier this year, Fort High principal Ian Simpson invited her here to share her story.
“I’ve done lots of speaking since the Olympics, and I love it,” she explained. “One of the most exciting things for me is to see high school kids who have already accomplished so much get to see what’s out there ahead of them.
“It’s incredible that I can have that much influence on kids, even seven years after being in the Olympics,” she added. “I’m glad I can use the experiences I had to encourage them to take a risk they wouldn’t take otherwise.
“Speaking to them keeps me young. Of course, most of them are taller I am,” she chuckled.
Sawatzky-Koop’s road to the national team began in Steinbach, where she led her high school squad to the ‘AA’ provincial crown in 1987. She moved on to play with the University of Manitoba Lady Bisons from 1988-93, where she centered the team’s drive to three-straight national titles.
Her impressive performance garnered her CIAU (now CIS) female player of the year honours in 1991 and 1992. She also has played in the Canada Summer Games and twice in the World Student Games.
It was a constant battle for her to prove her worth, though, as coaches at the different levels all initially frowned upon trusting the key position of setter to someone who could barely touch the top of the net from a standing position.
She credited her parents, especially her mom, for giving her the impetus to keep going when times got difficult.
“In Grade 11, I was attending a camp put on by [Lady Bisons’ coach] Ken Bentley, and he had been pretty tough on me,” recalled Sawatzky-Koop.
“My mom asked me if he was going to make me the best player I could be,” she added. “She said if I wanted to quit, she would support me, but if I want to be the best I can be, I should strive to learn everything I could from him.”
That decision propelled her to eventually make the national team in 1993, where she helped Canada to a bronze-medal victory at the Pan-American Games in Argentina in 1995.
But once again, Sawatzky-Koop had to overcome the bias of a coach who seemed set on favouring height over heart.
“[Head coach] Mike Burchuk really wanted to go with the taller setter,” said Sawatzky-Koop, who was informed just before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta that she would be relegated to the bench.
“He said when the time came to go up against the best in the world, he didn’t think we could get it done with a short setter. [My height] was an issue with him every single day.”
Sawatzky-Koop swallowed her pride and instead turned her focus on becoming what she called “the best bench player in the world.”
Volleyball tradition at international events dictates that teams originally enter the playing area led by the smallest member of their respective squads. Sawatzky-Koop becomes emotional even to this day when remembering the feeling she got leading the Canadian squad out onto the floor for their opening match against Cuba.
Then midway through the third match of the Olympic tournament, with Canada already 0-2 and trailing badly in the third match, Burchuk gave Sawatzky-Koop the chance she had so strongly yearned for.
“Mike turned to me and said, ‘Well, we’re down two games and 8-1 in the third—do you want to go in?’” she recounted with a glowing smile. “I looked at him and said, “It’s the Olympics, are you kidding me?’”
Once she entered the game, there was no getting Sawatzky-Koop out of it. She played the rest of that day’s match, then got the starting assignment the rest of tournament.
She also was front and centre when Canada beat Peru on the final day of competition for this nation’s first-ever Olympic victory in women’s volleyball.
There’s no remnants of bitterness against Burchuk left in Sawatzky-Koop these days as fences have been mended between the two.
“We chatted after the Olympics and it was a good chat,” she said. “We’re good friends now, and the most flattering thing is when we do volleyball camps together and Mike introduces me to the kids, he makes a point of saying here’s someone you want running your team.
“He’s proud of what I did, and what we did together.”
Sawatzky-Koop also has put her music degree earned at the University of Manitoba to good use in her life after the national team.
She runs a music studio, which sees about 20 voice and piano students under her tutelage, and also helps host “The Morning Show” on Radio Southern Manitoba AM 1250 based in Steinbach.
“I’m a morning person—I have to be, especially with nine-month-old twins,” she laughed.