With former head coach Jeremy Conn moving on to the head-coaching gig with the Vancouver Island Raiders of the Canadian Junior Football League, the Ballenas Whalers turned to longtime assistant coach Dan Smith as their new head coach.
Smith, who was named head coach last week, will look to build on the success from last season, which saw both the junior and senior football teams make the semi-finals and come within one game of making the provincial finals.
“It’s an honour to be the new head coach of the Whalers football program,” Smith said last week.
“It’s going to be a joint effort, with coach Mike Seselja more on the off-field part of things, so that allows me to focus on coaching the football team.”
Smith, who’s been with the Whalers since 2001 as both an assistant coach and offensive co-ordinator, is the only player in the UBC Thunderbirds football program to have his jersey retired. He’s a member of the UBC Alumni Hall of Fame (1997) and was inducted into the B.C. Football Hall of Fame in 2013.