Pierre Arsenault is taking over as chief executive officer of one of the largest sports leagues in Canada.
The 48-year-old from Riverview, N.B. steps to the helm of 14,000 student-athletes playing varsity sports in 56 Canadian universities from Victoria to St. John's, N.L.
Arsenault replaces U Sports interim CEO Dick White, who filled the void when Graham Brown resigned in 2020 after five years in the position.
Arsenault spent the last 13 years as Mount Allison University's athletic director in Sackville, N.B.
"It's such a transformative age in the lives of these young men and women and if I can play a small part in making sure that the experiences that they have are as rich, definitive and transformative as they can, I would really enjoy that challenge," Arsenault told The Canadian Press.
"The student-athlete is at the heart of all this. The stories that they all bring to our teams, leagues and conferences and just how rich that story is, the more we can do to make sure student-athletes always remain at the centre of everything we're trying to accomplish, the more success we'll have."
COVID-19 cancellations and postponements have impacted U Sports athletes and their national championships for almost two years. Eight national championships, five of them delayed, get underway in the next two weeks.
"What are we returning to after a couple years of disrupted seasons?" Arsenault asked. "As we play national championships in the next 10 days, it will be a really important kind of return.
"It's a vast country and there's a lot of space and a lot of demographic difference from region to region. We've got four conferences. Everyone is well-intentioned and everyone is committed to the experience of our student-athletes, but we're also divergent at times on our thinking on issues."
Arsenault was president of the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) conference from 2018 to 2020. He was executive director of the New Brunswick Golf Association for seven years before joining the Mounties.
He's also worked as a development coordinator at Hockey Canada's Atlantic Centre of Excellence and as technical director with the Saskatchewan Hockey Association.
"Through my set of experiences and the different roles and responsibilities I've had, one of the things I've found a comfort level doing is helping put parameters around conversations and help bring a lot of good ideas that don't necessarily have connection or direction together, so that we can maybe bring it to a common place to debate," Arsenault said.
"There are a lot of good ideas, but we also don't agree a lot. I feel I can help with that process."
Arsenault graduated from the University of New Brunswick and also has a master's degree in sports administration from the University of Ottawa.
“We are extremely pleased that a leader such as Pierre has emerged from the pool of talented candidates who applied for the position," said U Sports board of directors chair Joanne MacLean in a statement Tuesday.
"Pierre is a consensus builder and is well versed in our ecosystem. We are confident that he will immediately impact our organization and help us build on our solid foundation."
“We would like to thank Dick for agreeing to come out of retirement to provide tremendous leadership over the past two years. He has guided our organization through challenging times, and he leaves U SPORTS in a much better situation than he inherited."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 22, 2022.
Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
