Sports success at South Surrey secondary school
Published 2:15 pm Tuesday, June 16, 2026
As the school year draws to a close and barbecues, grad ceremonies and awards banquets take place, one thing stood out for Elgin Park Secondary this year: students were busy with their academic studies as well as sports.
The South Surrey school has 1,430 students, and of those, nearly 650 were registered and participated on a school sports team over the past school year.
“I’m really proud to say that 647 of our students were registered and participated on a school sports teams at Elgin Park this year. This doesn’t even include students participating in sports clubs and intramurals,” Elgin Park athletic director Chris Ellet said. “For a school of 1,430, it’s pretty awesome to have nearly half of our students participating in school sport.”
While winning isn’t everything, as coaches and staff like to focus on the development of the students as people as well as athletes, several teams won Surrey and South Fraser championships throughout the year, and many made it to provincial championships as well.
“Don’t get me wrong, we like to win and we want to win,” Ellet said, noting the banners brought back to the school’s halls. “We even had 11 teams qualify for BC School Sports provincial championships and another four qualify for invitational junior championships. That’s pretty good!”
Computer/PE teacher and longtime ultimate coach Greg Worsley noted they were able to run both a junior and senior team this year.
“Winning or even just making provincials is great, but having kids playing sports together is so much more important,” he said.
Ellet and other coaches shared that often, student athletes return to help mentor and coach younger students after they graduate.
Some teachers noticed there were several students who wanted to participate in athletics but weren’t able to make the highly competitive varsity basketball teams, so they created a junior basketball club for students Grade 8-10 guitar teacher and basketball coach Jim Black said.
“It was completely inclusive. There were no tryouts and we just got together weekly to ball,” he said. “While the goal was just inclusion, many have developed and even made it on to the varsity teams.”
While so many students are involved in sports, Ellet says they’re always looking at ways to get more kids involved, like the unified programs for basketball and soccer started by the Surrey school district last year, which blend neurotypical and neurodivergent students together.
At the start of the year during assemblies, Ellet said he always encourages students to participate in athletics.
“Whether you think you’re good, whether you don’t think you’re very good or you’re not really sure of what level (you’re at), show up and try anything,” he said. “Show up and give it a shot. And if you find out this is something that you’re not interested in, at least you can say you tried.
And you may find that there might be a passion for something that’s there that you didn’t already have beforehand.”
There’s also a chance for some great rivalries with neighbouring Semiahmoo Secondary, which issued a neighbourly challenge for a friendly game of ultimate versus Elgin Park in a previous Peace Arch News story.
“We don’t care if Semiahmoo plays in a higher tier than us,” noted Grade 9 ultimate player Ella Chen. “We just love to play. Challenge accepted!”