At 15 years old, Sierra Gillis is already an elite dual-athlete. She participates in Rugby Canada’s inaugural development academy and is a catcher for her Devils ’02 fastball team and has dreams of competing for Canada in either sport one day.
Gillis enjoys a team dynamic compared to individual sports. “I feel like it’s better when you have people you can trust and have your back and you work together to make it work,” she said.
Her mom, Michelle, said she started playing fastball at 12 and did well quickly. She started out at first base, tried pitching, but has found her groove as a catcher. Gillis received the attention of The Fastball School, a U.S. fastball academy, and was asked to join an American team to take part in the Huntington Showcase back in November. It featured the best high school fastball players in the U.S. that are hand-picked for the teams. Gillis was the only Canadian in the tournament.
“I’ve had people tell me that she has no idea of her potential,” Michelle said. Gillis is humble and doesn’t seek recognition, she just keeps working.
Her first exposure to rugby was on her middle school team, and she really took an interest in it when she played for her high school team in Grade 9. She thought that rugby could be a great future for her, she said.
Last year she attended the RBC Training Ground event at the University of Victoria to test her athletic ability against others. “I wanted to see how I stacked up against people who were super competitive and were very passionate about sports and athletic ability,” Gillis said.
The competition included athletes from ages 14 to 24, and Gillis, 14 at the time, was the youngest to participate.
Gillis found out about the training ground by chance. She was an integral part of the 2016 B.C. Summer Games gold medal softball team and Michelle received monthly e-mails from the society, and in the margin of the e-mail was advertising for the training ground.
Gillis showed great potential at the event and she approached Rugby Canada to express her interest in the sport. The coach was impressed with her physical test results, but said it was too bad she wasn’t a little taller. It was hard for her to hear that, but she decided to continue to work hard to get to where she wanted to go.
At Training Ground, Gillis posted a time of 5.66 seconds in the 40 metre dash, a distance of 6.6m in the triple broad jump, and 2.11m in the single broad jump.
She was asked to go to the regional finals at the Olympic Oval in Richmond and was one of 30 athletes across Canada awarded Olympic funding in hopes that she will one day represent her country.
Her strength and speed made her a perfect candidate for rugby. She plays either prop or flanker.
The lead development coach at Rugby Canada, Adam Kleeberger, saw Gillis at Training Ground but didn’t meet her until a Rugby Canada I.D. camp last summer, where he could tell she had an athletic background. He noticed she moved well, was very powerful, and coachable, he said.
She has been progressing in the development program, is a quick-learner and is always willing to hear constructive criticism, he said.
“Sierra is a really good example of the purpose behind this program,” Kleeberger said. “She did show she has a lot of raw ability, and so for us, it’s finding ways to nurture that, and giving her opportunites to develop and further herself in rugby or whatever sport she’ll go into afterwards. It is a rugby program, but we hope the people who leave the program leave as better people and are better adapted to challenges they face in school, sport or community.”
Kleeberger said the idea for the development academy came about because the senior women’s national rugby team found players Charity Williams and Caroline Crossley, through the Canadian Sports School Victoria Pacific Institute for Sports Excellence (PISE).
The development academy took the PISE model, which is not sport specific, and added a specific rugby component to it, so girls will hopefully more easily transition to compete in the Olympics right after high school.
Gillis spends her mornings at the academy, she arrives at 7:50 a.m. Monday to Friday for anything from weightlifting, technical classroom learning, skills, speed training, stretching and mobility training until she goes to school at Belmont for her classes in the afternoon. She then has either high school rugby or club fastball practice after school. “We call Saturday her rest day,” Michelle said.
She’s candid about her strengths and weaknesses, noting that she could improve her upper body and core strength. She’s always looking to improve.
A big part of playing rugby is experience and the ability to make reads.
Gillis is relatively new to the game so the development academy will give her more opportunities to play against higher quality players and develop a higher level anticipatory ability, Kleeberger said.
Gillis went to Vegas with the U16 B.C. sevens team for the Las Vegas Invitational from March 1 to 3 and her development academy team is going to play at a high school invitational tournament in Japan in April.
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