‘He’s meant to do that’: Windsor Lancers head coach headed to Paralympics

Windsor Lancers head coach, Brett Lumley, is going to the Paralympic Games in Paris at the end of the month.

“I'm absolutely 100 per cent excited,” said the Windsor Lancers associate head track coach, as he gets set to make his third trip to the games.

He is on the coaching staff for the second straight time after joining the Paralympic program in 2019. He went to Beijing as a personal coach in 2008.

“It's such an honor to wear the national honor of the Canadian flag and to represent not just Canada but also the city of Windsor and the University of Windsor and just being out there showing what we can do,” Lumley said as he joins his 12th national team.

“I think he's just at a level now where they know when he's there, he can help keep someone calm or help elevate their abilities at a major competition like the Paralympic Championships,” said former Lancers’ standout, Jamie Adjetey-Nelson, who won the Commonwealth Games in 2010, with the help of Lumley.

“That's something he's had for sport, helping people be the best they can be,” Adjetey-Nelson told CTV News. “And at any level, to have that from teenagers, right to the professionals, I think he's meant to do that.”

Lumley is in Barcelona, Spain for Team Canada's Staging Camp, where athletes are gathered to be acclimated to the weather, time zone change and to clear their minds of all the outside noise, so they are ready for the start of competition.

The team could feed off a record 27-medal haul by Canada at the recently concluded Olympics.

“Seeing the Olympics and seeing all those great performance and see how well Canada did and also seeing the excitement and the support by the city of Paris being at those championships or the games was fantastic. Everyone's looking forward to it,” said Lumley, who has been a coach at the University of Windsor since 1998.

Also heading to Paris is Windsor's Mike Whitehead, who has been a mainstay on Canada's wheelchair rugby team, having competed in five Paralympic Games, winning two silvers and a bronze. Teammate and fellow Windsorite, Matt Debly, who is making his Paralympic debut, will join the 48-year-old.

The Games begin with the opening ceremony on Aug. 28. Whitehead and Debly will take the floor the next day, when competition begins. The Paralympics run until Sept. 8.