Alumnus to help prepare Northern Ireland team for Commonwealth Games
Life Sciences graduate Asfand Minhas, right, with the McMaster Marauders mascot. Minhas is heading to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to help organizers prepare for the 2014 Commonwealth Games as part of the sportWORKS program.
When it comes to amateur sport, Asfand Minhas has just about done it all.
From volunteer administrator and coach to marketer and athlete, the life sciences alumnus has seen athletics from just about every angle.
He’s counting on that experience to help him over the next year, as he begins work in Belfast, Northern Ireland, helping organizers prepare the region’s team for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.
The 2012 graduate will help the games committee build sustainable sports programming, market amateur sport and develop partnerships with community agencies.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” said Minhas, who for the last year has worked in marketing for McMaster’s athletics department. “It’s great because I really like to dip my feet into everything.”
The Mississauga native has worked on a wide range of sport-related projects, including analyzing how to minimize waste at sporting events and helping to market the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
He says he realized his passion for sport could be turned into a viable career while in his third year at McMaster, when he used his background in science to develop and conduct a survey on campus athletics.
“I wanted to improve fan engagement,” he said, “so I took that data and spoke with U.S. universities to learn what they do differently.”
He presented the findings to Athletics & Recreation, which incorporated some of them into its sports communications.
“That’s what Mac does to people, in both the athletic community and in general. It instills a real passion for the community, and that’s what drives me.”
Of his time spent working with McMaster, Minhas says he’s most proud of his work building a community of sports fans and athletes online through social media.
“When the football team made the Vanier Cup, we got messages from the U.S., Mexico, Saudi Arabia, you name it,” he said. “It was incredibly important to us to have that community online.”
In total, nine young Canadian sport officers will be sent abroad through the Commonwealth Games of Canada’s SportWORKS program. The officers will assist both Commonwealth Games Associations and National Olympic Committees to prepare for their respective events.
