UBC Kinesiology graduate Art Tolhurst has experienced an interesting route to achievement. Attending high school in Richmond, Art was an outstanding football player with an interest and a goal. Following a year at Langara College he enrolled at UBC in Human Kinetics while playing Thunderbird football from 1997 through 2002. The 1997 Thunderbird team happened to win the Vanier Cup with Tolhurst on board and as his UBC career advanced he evolved to become one of our best, earning Canada West All-Star and All Canadian honours in 2002.
Tolhurst played pro football in Hamburg Germany and with the BC Lions in 2003. Following his pro career Art embarked upon a football coaching career in Vienna Austria then later served as an intern at the University of South Florida. He then took a Graduate Assistant position with the University of Oregon Strength and Conditioning Department. His next step was to achieve his Masters of Science in Educational Leadership at Oregon which earned him a full-time Assistant Strength Coach position at Cal Berkeley. He then returned to Oregon for four more years as Assistant Strength Coach before being hired in 2015 by the NFL’s Cleveland Browns as Assistant Strength Coach fulfilling a life-long dream of working in the NFL. Art coached on the Browns’ staff for three years until 2017. Tolhurst feels landing the jobs he has as a Canadian in big programs such as Oregon and the NFL Browns has been both a challenge and an accomplishment. He is proud to say large influences in his post secondary education were UBC Kinesiology alumni Norm Olenick and Kevin Hanson.
Art’s advice for students is to go for what you want, enhance your qualifications, keep in contact with colleagues and help people when you can.
Fred Hume
2020
