Dylan Brown, School of Kinesiology’s Active Kids Program Director, has been involved in sports in some capacity for as long as he can remember. “As a kid, physical activity and sports were what I was drawn to immediately,” he says. “My mother always said, ‘stick him in the backyard with one tennis ball and he’ll entertain himself for hours.’” Growing up in Ottawa, Ontario, Dylan kept busy with outdoor recreational activities like skating on the Rideau Canal, making use of outdoor skating rinks, and playing on virtually every school sports team through to high school.
Naturally, as his focal interest, Dylan looked for ways to incorporate sports into his career. “After high school, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he says. “The only thing that’d really piqued my interest was sports and physical activity but I didn’t know how to translate that into a career, I hadn’t even heard of the term kinesiology at that point.”
After an academic break, Dylan landed on Langara’s two-year diploma in Human Kinetics (now also kinesiology). During this degree, he actively coached with community centres and sport camps, as well as his volunteer post as coach of the Vancouver Blind Hockey team which he is still involved with today. Once he completed this degree, he transferred to the School of Kinesiology’s BKIN program into his third year, where he participated in the Co-op Program that really launched his career. “I’m a huge advocate for the program, particularly for KIN students where I believe strengthening your experience and building professional connections so that your resume is enhanced beyond your education can really make a difference post grad.”
Before joining the School nearly five years ago now, Dylan spent a few years working for provincial sports organizations (BC Wheelchair Sports Association, Curl BC, and Coaches BC to name a few), then took a post as the Sport Programmer at the Richmond Oval for children aged 1.5-13.
When I ask what keeps him on campus, he says, “Besides the obvious stuff like my colleagues and working in a sports-related field, this position allows me to have a positive impact on so many children’s lives through physical activity.” Dylan says the opportunity to embed these values in other kinesiology students’ experiences is really enriching and not easy to find. “The student mentorship and engagement piece is something I really enjoy.”
Dylan has made every effort as program director over the last five years to increase opportunities for student engagement and deepen the program’s ties to the School in a variety of ways. “I want to grow Active Kids in three key ways: increasing the School’s community engagement portfolio by delivering quality physical activity programming; providing experiential learning opportunities for students to apply their course work while also creating experience and skills that holds value for the whole student body; and in a research/academic capacity – where appropriate, I’d love to see more students involved in our programs as part of their coursework or use our programs as a resource for research.”
Dylan still makes time for his own physical activity every week. He plays tennis at UBC twice per week on his lunch breaks, hockey, basketball, golf, and league beach volleyball – weather permitting! He also runs a rec hockey league. “I can’t think of any sport you could put in front of me that I wouldn’t try, and that is a direct result of the positive experiences and confidence I developed playing sports as a child – providing the same opportunities for kids and communities through my work at UBC and the School’s expertise is very rewarding,” he says. “There’s also so much social value in it for me. Just getting out with friends and being active. As I get older, I’m seeing that it’s less easy for me to do all the sports and things I enjoyed as a kid, so this makes me even more conscious of the fact that I should be more active for my health.”
He also stresses that it’s important for him that he walk the talk. “In terms of a work capacity, practicing what I preach matters. I’m constantly preaching to our staff team, all of our student coaches, and then trickling down it down into the design of the programs we deliver, the value of physical activity, physical literacy development, and multi-sport participation. Participating in a variety of sports as a kid did so much for my motivation and confidence levels and has helped me make healthy and active choices as I get older. In order to be successful, I have to practice what I preach as an adult as well!”