The year was 1992. The Blue Jays were on their way to Canada’s First World Series Championship, The Leafs were about to enter the Doug Gilmour era and Canada was in a recession. Makes you wish the Blue Jays would give us something to cheer about, doesn’t it?

In 1992 I was being introduced to the new sport of flatwater kayaking. I went down to the club and struggled (read: swam) my way through my first summer and my coaches were a few young guys from North Bay. Scott Madill was the head coach and he gave me my first technical coaching in this sport.

I remember one session in particular, it was late fall and I was among only a few paddlers still braving the elements. Scott paddled alongside me for most of the workout; having me do several different drills (as is his signature) along the way and at the end he took the time to tell me that I have real potential in this sport and if I stick with it good things will happen.To this day I can still remember the excitement in telling my parents that the head coach thought I had potential and one-day would have great success.

This is just one of literally one million stories of Scott’s ability to ‘fire-up’ his athletes. I don’t mean ‘fire-up’ in the sense of a canned pre-game speech, what I mean is an ability to communicate a true passion and love for the sport of paddling. There are many ways to tell when someone is speaking about a topic they truly are passionate about - with Scott that’s paddling. He can rattle off historical origins, quirky facts, significant individual achievements and most importantly share embarrassing personal anecdotes of prominent athletes, or even better, hilarious impersonations.

He is the most nervous and rambunctious spectator I’ve ever tried to watch a race with, he can be as satirical and jaded as anyone I’ve had a meeting with, he can look at and read a newspaper while also conducting a meeting and he is absolutely and positively the source of the most current gossip.

But the thing I admire, respect and try to emulate most of all about Scott is his true and innate passion for his task. That task being to share his passion for paddling with others and/or to care about the experience of his students, whether those students are in his classroom or his boat.

I can still remember the excitement of that fall paddle and the motivation it filled me with. Its no wonder hundreds more paddling through the Sir Oliver Mowat Dragon Boat Program have experienced something similar.