Ivan Tam

Builder (2023)

Athletics

A name known by many in the track community. As an athlete and coach, Tam has been involved with track for over 40 years. In his grade 12 year at Nutana Collegiate in 1979, Tam won the 100m and 200m sprints in the Saskatoon high school track championships. Growing up, Tam competed in various sports, including football, basketball, bowling, hockey, skateboarding and volleyball. As he began his track and field career, he began specializing in sprints and hurdles. During his time on the U of S track and field team, Tam finished second on a sprint relay team with the Huskies at university nationals in 1984. A season later, he became an assistant coach with the Huskies, eventually becoming the head coach of the team for four years. Being on the coaching roster to this day, Tam has won 9 National Championships coaching with the Huskies.

Tam has coached with the North Battleford Legion Track Club, Brainsport Athletics, PR Athletics and the Saskatoon Track and Field Club. Furthermore, Tam has coached at the Saskatchewan Summer Games and the Western Canada Summer Games. For 20 years, Ivan was a coach every summer at the Royal Canadian Legion camp in Saskatchewan for youth involved in track and field. Although Tam specializes in coaching sprints and hurdles, he also coached high school cross-country. He was the commissioner who organized the routes for 15 years and introduced the concept of a 2K course housing a 1K course within it to SSSAD. Tam also coaches athletes in other sports, being a speed and conditioning coach with the Hilltops football team, the Huskies football and various hockey teams. Being a high school physics teacher has helped him translate the biomechanics of sports. Being a high school physics teacher for 22 years, his knowledge of kinematics and forces translated well to the biomechanics of sports.

Tam tells his athletes before a competition, “Go out there, do the best you can and have fun.”

Ivan has worked with many athletes over the years; however, a remarkable event Ivan started was the “Tykes” program. Between the heats and finals during relay meets, Tam would invite children from the stands to run alongside his own children in a short sprint. Originally meant to create time for the officials and entertain the spectators, this tradition blossomed into its own set of events for children at the PR Athletics First Chance track meet. Tam was incremental in spreading the love for track and field to both young and old.

Tam has coached many notable athletes, such as Greg Luterbach, Kristen Hagel, Graeme Rinholm, Michelle Young, and Nicole Ostertag. If Tam wasn’t trackside at the Field House, he was taking photos at the PAC, Education gym or Griffiths Stadium as the photographer of Huskie Athletics for 13 years.

An annual scholarship for student-athletes in Huskies track and field is the Tam Family Award. Ivan is the donor.