Tobias Ng is a graduate of the High-Performance Coaching and Technical Leadership program (BKin 2013, MHPCTL 2020). He was an Olympic athlete in the 2012 Games and is a high-performance coach at the Bellevue Badminton Club in Washington, U.S.A. He currently coaches for the club’s junior badminton program and travels to regional and national competitions with his athletes.
Tobias began as a UBC engineering student but quickly realized it was not for him. He discovered his interests were more aligned with KIN’s undergraduate program and so transferred to the School of Kinesiology. He then took a leave from his studies to train and compete as a badminton player at the 2012 London Olympic Games. He returned to UBC to complete his BKin in 2013, and in 2018 Toby decided to enroll in the MHPCTL program while competing with Badminton Canada.
He says that studying high-performance coaching and technical leadership broadened his perception of badminton as an athlete. “Now that I’m finally retired from international competition, I have the chance to combine my former experience as an athlete with the best of the coaching sciences to help me as a coach,” remarks Tobias. Tobias cited KIN professors and adjuncts, Dr. Carolyn McEwen, Dr. Maria Gallo, Dr. Andy Van Neutegem, Dr. Shaunna Taylor, and David Hill, as his biggest inspirations to “think critically” and to familiarize himself “with evidence-based decision making.” He believes his studies at UBC KIN have provided him with the opportunity to apply what he learned in academia to his training, and to develop an interdisciplinary outlook on coaching.
Tobias has achieved many career highlights and successes over the past decade. He competed with Badminton Canada as a national badminton athlete, winning six national titles and competing at the 2012 London Olympics. In addition, he participated in seven World Championships, including the Pan Am Games where he won gold in 2011 and silver in 2015. As a successful athlete, coaching was not a career path he thought he could pursue full-time. “Although I was always considering coaching as a part-time thing, opportunities came up where I could do it as a full-time job and I’m truly grateful for that,” states Tobias. One of these opportunities was “coaching the B.C. team at the 2019 Canada Winter Games” prior to his current position.
Becoming a “better coach” is Tobias’s primary goal. He wants to “learn from wherever possible” and implement approaches that improve his coaching style. He hopes to publish a book on badminton in the near future, “to coach an athlete to qualify for the Olympic Games and return to international competition as a professional coach.”
Tobias’s tips for current KIN students: “Focus on what you can control (your choices and intentions). Don’t worry about what you cannot control (outcomes, pretty much everything else). If you can turn obstacles into opportunities, then nothing can get in your way. Lastly, understand the difference between recognition (illusion of understanding) and recall (true understanding).”