Brad Thornhill had one of those moments of clarity a few weeks ago as he walked past the rows of the lockers at North Vancouver’s Sutherland Secondary School.
“We had just gotten our rugby jackets and I could see the players wearing them all through the hallways,” said Thornhill, who seven seasons ago took the bold step of re-introducing the sport to the school as its coach. “To me, that is all about having pride in your school.”
If Thornhill had any kind of big picture in mind when he gathered a group of Grade 8s for their first practice back in 2008, it was to find a sport for all of those students he would see in the hallways who hadn’t yet found their identity through sport.
Rugby, rooted in team concepts and a family-like camaraderie, was the perfect vehicle, so he pushed forward despite the fact that he had never played the sport on any kind of an organized level.
“I was just worried about being prepped the best I could be,” Thornhill recollects of that first-ever practice, one which arrived after he watched a lot of video and asked a lot of questions. “Besides, the Grade 8s were just beginners. They didn’t realize that I was only a day or two ahead of them.”
Fast forward to this season, and the big picture has largely been realized.
The Sabres’ junior boys team is thriving with an overall record of 7-2, and for the first time since 1988, the school is fielding a senior boys varsity team, one which has compiled a 6-1 overall record at the Tier 2 level, including 4-0 in league play. On Wednesday, the Sabres played out of conference and fashioned a 38-15 win at Vancouver’s St. George’s ‘B’.
Improbable?
Yes, but in the case of Thornhill, it’s not the first time he has taken an unconventional route to success in the coaching world.
A 1987 graduate of Vancouver’s Magee Secondary, Thornhill served as the manager of the boys basketball team under veteran head coach Paul Eberhardt before going on to become a successful head coach himself in that sport over the past two decades.
Regularly coaching four teams every school year, Thornhill began the 2014-15 campaign in the late fall by coaching the school’s senior and junior boys basketball teams. He will close it by coaching the senior and junior boys rugby teams into the playoffs.
“When I was a kid, the only organized sport I played was soccer,” said Thornhill, 45. “But I played everything all the time and I had fun, and that definitely factored into me wanting to get into coaching.”
The fact that his wife Liz has been a longtime part of the girls rugby coaching staff at crosstown power Carson Graham certainly hasn’t hurt. Neither has the fact that his dad Gordon played the game in his younger years.
Thornhill has even leaned on rival North Shore coaches for advice and counsel, and with a strong base of coaching concepts gleaned from the basketball court, it has all come together.
“One of the things that has really helped me leapfrog is that my wife coaches at Carson Graham,” Thornhill said. “I went with them on a tour to New Zealand and I was hooked. I have thought to myself that it would be the ultimate to get a Sutherland team on tour, and with the young guys coming up I think it’s possible. In 2008, I would never have thought that.”
Liz Thornhill, like her husband, is a basketball coach, and this past season coached the Carson Graham Grade 9 girls to the B.C. finals. With two children under the age of four, their dedication to coaching and family is amazing.
“The one thing that has always been important to me,” said Thornhill, “is that when I look back to being in high school, I saw all of those teachers at Magee putting in time for us. I saw how much fun they had. I must have been 12 when I thought how great it would be to become a coach. So Liz and I believe that’s something that you have to keep going.”
