The Estevan Mermaids have said goodbye to their former head coach as she moves to other career opportunities in Saskatoon, but Brenda Lyons will carry with her the countless memories made with the synchronized swimming team.
Lyons said she was sad to leave them behind for Saskatoon recently.
“That was probably one of the hardest parts about making the decision to move from Estevan,” she said. “Estevan had been my home for over 25 years and I probably spent a dozen of those years as a member of the Estevan Mermaids club.
“I had the privilege of working with some amazing young women over the dozen years and making some really good friends in the club.”
Lyons said she leaves proud of what has gone on at the club in her time there.
“I know that the club, when I first started coaching, we had six athletes and at a one point high we had 100 athletes,” she said.
She didn’t know the exact figures for the club’s enrolment this year but felt the numbers were strong and the club is in capable hands of their volunteer executive board.
“The culture of the club is firmly planted in how the board makes decisions and how the club is operated,” Lyons said. “I leave knowing that the club is well established in the community and will go on to impact many young women and men in the future.”
The memories are both of big competitions and the first tentative toes in the water of young kids trying out the sport for the first time.
“There’s so many wonderful things that happen in sports,” she said. “It’s great that you place in a competition and those are great memories because I always knew how hard the athletes worked to obtain a goal. Watching them obtain those goals was always very rewarding for me, but there’s always those moments of standing beside the side of a pool, or having team meetings, or going out for a smoothie after practice…
“Our club does an annual sleepover every year so we can work on other parts of their development, so we do character-building and team-building exercises and so sleeping on a church floor for 10 or 12 years with all of my Mermaid family, those are really important memories for me.”
Lyons has moved to Saskatoon and is only going to be substitute coaching for the Aqualenes, who are based out of that city. This move is not like a cold turkey break from the provincial synchro scene for Lyons.
“You think that you want to walk away from them when you’re in the middle of it but it’s something I really value and I think it’s an amazing sport,” Lyons said. “I have different work commitments and different family commitments. I didn’t know how life was going to be in Saskatoon right off the bat but I didn’t want to walk away from being involved with young, special athletes when I could.”
Lyons leaves with many accomplishments through the Mermaids and high performance provincial coaching. She won the Sask Sport coach of the year award in 2013 and the Sadie Caulder Knight Coach of the Year Award, The Weiner Sisters Provincial Stream Coach Recognition Award and the Jami Eistetter Coaching Excellence Award through Synchro Sask.
Lyons is proud of how the board has been established and the clearly defined roles in helping run the club and provide leadership.
“I know the club is in very good hands,” she said. “We also have a very good group of volunteer coaches besides me that have been running programming in Estevan for many years. I know the people that are … coaching are constantly upgrading their skills for better ways of coaching and helping athletes succeed.”
Lyons finished coaching at the club through the 2018 Saskatchewan Winter Games cycle but wasn’t sure where her life and goals would be, so the club did some succession planning and some of the coaches in the past few years had fulfilled some of the head coaching role.
“It’s going to be a little bit extra work for them but they’re really well prepared,” she said. “They’re going to do a fantastic job.”
