One of Drayton’s former residents is sitting in the top 10 for the RBC Future Olympians Program in 2022.
The Future Olympians program helps athletes out by providing funding so they can continue with their fitness training.
It also brings their names to the forefront for the six sports organizations that work with RBC. Cassie Jorgenson, who first started playing rugby at H.W. Pickup, was selected for the rugby program.
“Rugby picked me, which was exciting, because that’s the one that I wanted,” she says.
She says regionals were held in 2021, but because of Covid, they were unable to gather together and train. Instead, participants were required to send in their stats virtually.
In the fall of 2021, Jorgenson learned she’d been selected to move on to the next tier of the program, which meant she would compete with other athletes for the top 100.
“I started my fitness tests while I was in Drayton last November,” says Jorgenson. She says she originally tried to do her beat test on her front driveway, but because it wasn’t flat it didn’t work. She called the schools to check availability, but due to Covid they were unable to help.
Finally, she got a call from a former trainer in Edmonton that allowed her to come do the testing at their facility.
Once she found out she qualified for the top 100, Jorgenson headed down to Calgary.
“In December, I found out that I made top 30, and that was pretty awesome,” says Jorgenson.
RBC will give Rugby Canada an allotment of funds that they will then redistribute to Jorgenson to help pay for her training. “It means that Rugby Canada has noted me … as a potential Olympic Roster choice,” she says.
Jorgenson says she won’t know if she is selected for the Olympic roster until the team is getting ready for the 2024 Olympics.
In the meantime, Jorgenson she’s going to use this opportunity to bring attention to herself. “I’m just going to use this time to get my name out there and possibly get carded,” she says.
If she gets carded, she will be recognized as a professional athlete and Rugby Canada would pay her directly.
“That would be a next step for me. And that could happen any time for me, or it could never happen at all,” she says.
Jorgenson says she credits her junior high experience with some of her success. “In Drayton Valley we were allowed to play contact, whereas my friends in Edmonton who play rugby had to play flag in junior high,” she says.
She says the rugby coach for the H.W. Pickup Girls Team, Stephen Dodds, has worked hard to make the rugby program successful in Drayton Valley.
“Stephen Dodds has done such a great job of promoting rugby in Drayton. It’s kind of a niche sport,” she says.
“[He] made such a great effort to recruit girls, and he was just clearly so passionate about it”.
“Dodds had a big, big impact on how I got started. He is the reason why I got started in rugby,” she says.
Mike Rosentreder was another big influence for Jorgenson, as he encouraged her to pursue the sport seriously.
“He gave me a lot of confidence to go out there and see if I could make it in the city,” she says.
She says she played at H.W. Pickup and practiced with the high schoolers, too. In the middle of Grade 10, she relocated to Edmonton where she could pursue further training for the sport. Since then she’s trained at the Rugby Academy at the Vimy Ridge High School, where she trained with the Green and Gold. In Grade 12 she also had the opportunity to go train with Rugby Canada in B.C.
Since then she has come back to Alberta to attend the University of Alberta, where she plays on the varsity team and is studying to become a sports psychologist. At the U of A, Jorgenson made the Juniors National Team with rugby.
Once the pandemic hit, Jorgenson was unable to go to any other group events. However, she used the time to work on her personal fitness.
“It’s given me a lot of time to just work on my fitness, because that was really all I could do for a while,” she says.
