At halftime of a Friday night men’s basketball game between the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades and the MacEwan Griffins (8 p.m. tip-off, Envision Athletic Centre), Chilliwack’s Aaron Pauls will be honoured.
The soon-to-be graduated golfer arrived at UFV after graduating from Sardis secondary school in 2009, and has led the men’s golf team to four PacWest titles and four podium finishes at CCAA nationals, including a gold medal in 2013.
Earlier this year he became the first UFV athlete to be selected to represent Canada at the World University Championship, and he helped Team Canada to a fifth-place finish in Switzerland.
“Simply put, Aaron is the most important player who has come through our golf program, and maybe the most talented athlete to ever attend UFV,” Cascades head coach Chris Bertram said of Pauls. “On top of his athletic accomplishments, Aaron has been a great leader for our team, a great ambassador for the university, and a Dean’s List student.”
Pauls, who is finishing his kinesiology degree this semester, is headed to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) to pursue his Masters degree in the same field of study.
He wasn’t initially thrilled to be attending UFV out of high school, after watching other B.C. golfers land scholarships to NCAA schools south of the border.
But in the end, he’s glad he became a Cascade.
“I thought I was better than this,” he explained. “But as I met people at the school and Chris, I really started to love it. This is a place to get better. It’s a place to work on your game.
“One of my goals at UFV was to improve the program any way I could. . . . I felt I’ve made an impact on that, so I’m leaving in very good spirits.”