UBC’s Physical Education faculty has been home to many of BC’s best basketball players. One such student, a graduate in Education with a 1973 Physical Education (Kinesiology) degree, is Joanne Sargent. While playing for the Blue & Gold between 1968/69 and 1972/73 she starred on three Canadian champion teams, two of those UBC teams are inductees in the UBC Sports Hall of Fame and the Basketball BC Hall of Fame. That is three national champions in four Varsity years! Joanne also was a member of Canada’s national team from 1970 through 1976 competing for Canada in the 1976 Olympics. In fact, in the 1976 Olympics, she set an Olympic Games basketball record for most assists in a single game, a record that stood for twenty years.
For more than ten years after graduation Joanne played Senior ‘A’ basketball winning several Canadian championships, a Canada Games team gold in 1975 and more MVP awards (a reported eleven) than she can recall. Moreover, she and her teams won three more gold medals at Masters and Seniors Tournaments in 2005, 2009 and 2010.
Basketball has been an integral part of Joanne’s life in addition to careers as a television Production Assistant and a TV News Director Assistant. As a player her hard work and intense competitiveness have helped inspire others and has translated into her induction as an athlete into the Okanagan Sports Hall of Fame, the UBC Sports Hall of Fame, the Basketball BC Hall of Fame and in 2014, the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
Written by Fred Hume, UBC Historian
