10 Sports and Clubs September 30, 2009 ___* Ouer the Edge T-Wolves Add International Superstar : FY i] ANDREW BAILEY EDIITOR IN CHIEF /SPORT EDITOR When Mike Raimbault took over as the Head Coach of the UNBC ‘T-Wolves Men's Basketball team, he immediately began working all his recruiting magic towards get- ting the invulnerable Jose Araujo into the green and gold. Of course, seeing as Araujo is amember of El Salvador’s National Team which he has spent the last 2 summers playing for and therefore is a man with international experience on a world’s stage, naturally every coach in the country was hoping to put him on their team. It is there- fore of tremendous awesomeness that Coach Raimbault proved he is as effective as a recruiter as he is coaching on the court by an- nouncing the arrival of the ven- erable superstar Jose Araujo to the great city of Prince George! Coach Raimbault’s recruitment of Araujo was done in the tiny town of Toronto where Araujo was attending Sheridan College as a student but was not partici- pating on the school’s basketball team. Raimbault explains his early courtship with his former white whale and now star player: “T started recruiting him within of couple of weeks of me getting the job last summer. I was able to get in contact with him and we stayed in touch. I went on two recruit- ing trips to Toronto and spent time with him on both trips and got a chance to get to know him.’ A huge factor in Araujo’s deci- sion to come to UNBC was the ‘T-Wolves hosting the National Champion- exceptional success ships last season; as well as the T- Wolf fans success in creating the most exciting College Basketball environment, sans Dick Vitale, in world history. Raimbault states “Jose watched a lot of the na- tionals online which gave him a chance to see how amazing our building is, and how exciting the environment was during games, and that was definitely a part of his deciding to attend UNBC. He was pretty highly sought after by several other schools and the Na- tional Championships definitely helped in our recruitment of him.’ Although obviously creating the loudest splash, Araujo is not the only new Eastern Canadian talent coming onto the team this year as Raimbault has also brought to the team two recruits from Quebec's CEGEP league: Sebastian-Kevin Louis, and Didier Sam. Both players achieved tremendous suc- cess with John Abbot College last season with Louis finishing the season with 277 good enough for fourth highest scoring total in the league and Sam whose nine- re- bound- a- game average ranked third highest in the entire league. As with Araujo, Raimbault gives a lot of credit for the recruitment of these two French Canadian phe- noms to UNBC’s success during the National Championships last year explaining “the thing that's really cool is right now you can still go online and watch those games, so if I talk to Sebastian and Didier I can say: log into here and watch our games at Nation- als and cycle through the games we played. So having that stuff up online, of such an amazing tour- nament, it’s really beneficial, And obviously any time you can say that we finished 4th in the country last year it's a pretty strong state- ment to a player looking for a pro- gram that should be successful.’ The final out of town addition to this year’s dynamic T-Wolves is Abdu Benrabah. Benrabah, a freshman coming out of Mt Doug High School in Victoria where he was ateammate of current T-Wolf megathlete Francis Rowe, was scouted through UNBC'’s Identi- fication Camp held in the spring. Identification Camp is a tremen- dously helpful tool that schools use to gauge the skill level of possible recruits. Raimbault de- UNBC’s Identification Camp as “a chance for us, if we're scribes not sure if a guy is necessarily go- ing to be able to contribute, to see him come in and play against our current players. We look at whos going to fit our needs best and obviously if you show well against guys who are currently on the team it's a big opportun- ity to impress the coaching staff.’ Watching possible additions to the team competing against the current roster is Raimbault's fa- vourite attribute to Identification Camp as he explains, “the fact that they're playing with our cur- rent roster players is, I think, the best thing about it. You could get any 20 players randomly in the gym with each other and certain guys are going to look great. But the fact that you get our 10 or 15 guys in there with them, now we can really see the talent because if you're doing well, or if you're PHOTOS BY REZA AKBARI making (legendary T-Wolf super- star Inderbir Gill) look bad, then were going to recognize what's going on.’ Roughly 25 aspiring T-Wolves showed up to UNBC’s identification camp with Benrabah being the only player recruited. There will also be two local ath- letes for T-Wolf fans to watch this year as the team welcomes the addition of Kevan Madsen’s 69” built-to-rebound frame; as well as the 2009 Prince George City Finals MVP Dan Stark, the younger brother of the already legendary T-Wolf phenomenon Dennis Stark. Recruitment was a huge part of Raimbault’s offseason as the T- Wolves will be coming into the season without the benefit of for- mer T-Wolf defensive specialist Jarret Borsoi as well as the three- point threats of Swaroop Singh Clair and Paul Schmitke. The T- Wolves also suffered a devastating blow with the news that they will be without the exceptional leader- ship and dynamic inside- the- paint play of Paul Burkholder who has transferred to Carleton for unexplainable academic reasons. Although most certainly aware of the incredible contribution Burk- holder brought to his T-Wolves, Raimbault is optimistic about the upcoming season stating, “a guy like Paul Burkholder was an unbelievable leader, great team- mate, unbelievable work ethic, so its tough to replace the charac- ter things that he brought to the table. Obviously he was a pretty skilled player as well. So you can't necessarily replace guys but you want to look for people to shoul- der the load and I’m happy with the guys that we have in, We've had a few practices together and the chemistry seems to be good. We're going to be quick and fast, and I think we should have a very tough team. We're going to be definitely fun to watch. I like the intensity and the camaraderie so far; we've got a long ways to go but were going to entertain the fans of Prince George that’s for sure.’ The entertainment starts Novem- ber 6". Get the chest paint out of the drawers and give the Playsta- tion to your nephew. You're not going to want to miss any games this season.