Wiebe makes mark with Oregon women’s hoops

Full send.

It’s a simple thought with deep meaning for Britt Wiebe.

It’s the attitude that sent the Brandonite around the world for a whirlwind of life-changing opportunities.

It’s the message she preaches to her student-athletes as the head strength and conditioning coach for the University of Oregon women’s basketball team.

“My biggest fear is not sending, being complacent, or not taking that risk and always wondering, ‘What if?’” Wiebe told the Sun via phone interview. “That’s been my motto. Full send, go do it, even if it’s uncomfortable.

“The worst thing that’s going to happen from it is growth. But regardless, you’re always going to grow from it, you’re going to get better from it.”

The four-year varsity hooper for Crocus Plains, who followed teammate Dani DeGagne to North Dakota State University on a full-ride NCAA Division I scholarship, hasn’t lost an ounce of the love for competing instilled in her from the start.

Wiebe played anything and everything growing up, including hockey on boys’ teams until she turned 16.

In the meantime, her focus started to shift. Not long after she started attending Crocus, coach Dave Malowski offered her a chance to play varsity hoops as a freshman.

DeGagne led that team, the defending AAAA provincial champions, back to the gold-medal game, where the Plainsmen lost a 67-65 heartbreaker to the Vincent Massey Trojans.

That season set Wiebe on her journey in basketball, and she credits Malowski for helping her find that love.

“He saw me as a little Grade 9 kid with a lot of potential and a lot of raw ability. He was able to help shape me and really home in on what it would take to play at the next level,” Wiebe said, adding DeGagne’s father, Rick, and Plainsmen coach Barb Coulter were also instrumental.

“Having (Dani) to look up to and also Rick helping me along the way with landing my scholarship and getting seen, I’m really thankful for those amazing people in my life.”

MOVING OUT

Wiebe headed down to NDSU and redshirted her freshman year with the Bison.

The following season, she averaged 5.4 minutes per game and stayed about the same in 2014-15 before more than doubling that mark with 13.8 mpg during her fourth and final year in Fargo.

The five-foot-nine guard averaged 1.9 points and 1.8 rebounds per game that season. Her team struggled, finishing 2-14 in conference play after a 7-9 mark the year before.

But Wiebe found her calling off the court, specifically in the weight room.

“Playing at a high level, competing at a Division I level, it was the next step,” Wiebe said. “I hadn’t experienced anything like that back home, with all the detail that went into training and preparation and physically becoming your best. I realized how important strength and conditioning was.

“It instilled a lot of confidence. I felt stronger, a lot more confident on the court. I could jump higher, I could win more rebounds, you could automatically tell the difference.”

Wiebe connected with Jason Miller, NDSU’s director of strength and conditioning, who can’t say enough about how good a fit Wiebe is in her role.

Miller noticed her eagerness and passion for her own training right away but was even more impressed when she interned with NDSU’s strength and conditioning staff in 2015 before her final year on the team.

It wasn’t just that she knew what to tell the athletes, but also her demeanour and ability to interact with them.

Even though she was coaching her peers, she seamlessly stepped into the role of pushing them the right way.

“She was coaching males, she was coaching females, and she didn’t have a problem holding people accountable,” Miller said via phone interview.

“That’s the hardest thing with coaching, young coaches in particular. They want to be friends and don’t want to hold people accountable and coach them. That’s something she was comfortable with right away.

“A lot of coaches that are new to the weight room, they’re a little bit intimidated and don’t quite have a voice. Britt’s someone that had her voice and found it really quickly.”

Miller helped her with networking and sorting through internship opportunities that would help open doors for her. The first big one was at Clemson University, where she interned in strength and conditioning in the summer of 2016.

LIFE AFTER PLAYING

That transition out of the student-athlete identity is often tough, but Wiebe got over it quickly as she drove down to South Carolina with her parents to start a new chapter.

“There was so much excitement around that, that I never really had a chance to mourn not being an athlete anymore,” Wiebe said.

“Always being able to surround myself with such high-level athletes, still be involved in athletics every day of my life, I haven’t really felt that disconnect, which I’m so grateful for.

“I love sport, I love being surrounded by sport, I love competing and getting better every day.”

Wiebe’s next stop was the University of Missouri, where she worked as a graduate assistant while completing a master’s of education in positive coaching and psychology.

She finished that in 2018, then joined Major League Baseball’s Houston Astros organization, working with minor league players in the Dominican Republic, including current Astros Bryan Abreu and Hunter Brown.

“Seeing them make it big and knowing you had a small part to play in their development and how they got there is really special,” Wiebe said.

In the meantime, she completed a master’s of science in human performance through an Ireland-based school.

Wiebe then headed to Dubai to be the strength and conditioning co-ordinator for the Elite Falcons Football Club, where current Seattle Sounder Georgi Minoungou trained before reaching the Major League Soccer ranks.

Wiebe’s two stints with professionals were certainly eye-opening. Wiebe explained that with student-athletes there are rules limiting the hours players can work out and, of course, courses to prioritize.

“But when you’re in the pros, you’re fully immersed,” Wiebe said.

“That’s their job … they’re giving everything they got. Especially working with baseball and pro soccer in Dubai … this is their shot to provide for their family, make it big. The level of dedication to that was next level.”

One big change during Wiebe’s time with professional athletes was working with men’s teams. She said strength and conditioning is a male-dominated field, but she was used to those types of spaces.

She realized that while some coaches and athletes may have doubts early, she can erase them by simply doing what she does best. The moment they see she is improving athletes’ abilities and helping their program, gender doesn’t matter.

“It’s no secret that baseball’s kind of an old-fashioned boys club,” Wiebe said.

“I’ve always challenged myself to enter rooms that maybe I wasn’t entirely welcomed in and prove myself, putting my head down, working, and making it better than how I found it.

“Making that breakthrough with the staff, initially the old-school coaches don’t really have much to say or look at you like, ‘What is she doing in this room?’ But you make a breakthrough, they start to see improvements in their players, and you start to collaborate.”

DREAM SITUATION

After two years in Dubai, Wiebe took a break and backpacked with friends for six months in Southeast Asia and Central America.

She started looking for jobs again and was hoping for something on the West Coast of the United States. Sure enough, Oregon came up.

While Wiebe interviewed for a position with the university in 2024, she found out she’d have the potential to transition back to women’s basketball, where it all began.

She couldn’t be happier with her current fit.

“Being a part of a program like Oregon women’s basketball has been amazing. The resources, the athletes, and just the commitment to excellence are all at such a high level here,” Wiebe said.

“Everyone has a championship-type mentality, everyone’s putting in extra work, it’s just very next level to what I’ve experienced at any other college that I’ve been with.”

In the strength and conditioning world, the off-season is the season.

Wiebe fosters a high-energy, supportive environment to help her women get the most out of gruelling sessions as teammates hold each other accountable.

That’s when athletes make their biggest muscle gains, which translate to speed and explosiveness over time.

But Wiebe learned there’s another equally important benefit, evidenced by events like the “stadium finisher” she held at the end of the summer as players split into teams and ran the stairs at the football team’s Autzen Stadium and competed in sled pushes, a tug-of-war, and more.

“That’s where culture’s really built,” Wiebe said. “The environment’s electric, everyone’s involved, and that’s one of my favourite moments with Oregon.

“That’s the power of team, too. Just supporting each other, being behind one another and feeding off of that energy. That’s why I love my job, I get to provide that environment and instill that confidence in each other.

“‘This is hard, but let’s have fun doing it, go for that extra rep.’”

Wiebe’s programming has shifted to accommodate the heavy practice and game schedule that comes with DI athletics.

She’s at every practice and game to lead the Ducks through warmups, so she’ll have to dust her luggage off and prepare for the team’s first road trip of the season next week.

The travel schedule is heavier for Oregon since last year, when it joined the Big Ten Conference, which used to predominantly feature Midwest schools.

The Ducks are just three home games into their season, but Wiebe has already drawn high praise from outside the program.

Longtime University of San Diego women’s basketball head coach Cindy Fisher sat right behind the Oregon bench for its game last week and approached Ducks head coach Kelly Graves afterwards with a message.

“Make sure you compliment whoever your strength coach is because your team looks fit, and they look fast, and they look strong,” Graves said via phone interview.

“That coach had nothing to gain by saying that.”

Graves, who has been with the Ducks since 2014, said Wiebe’s “infectious energy” stands out and his players have responded. He said the fact that Wiebe played high-level basketball is invaluable and noticeable in her work with the team.

Graves has embraced Wiebe’s non-traditional approach to warmups, where instead of just a basic dynamic warmup, she works in some races and other competitions.

“When you’re a player, you know stretching and strength training can sometimes not be fun and I think she has made it a little bit more fun for them,” Graves said.

“She understands, being a basketball player, that it’s important to keep it fresh and do different things. I like that approach.”

WHY?

Wiebe wasn’t built to do something she could turn on and off like a switch. She wants to be all-in, figuring out how to improve her craft and, in turn, make her athletes better.

The job is demanding, but for her, there’s nowhere she’d rather be.

“The culture it instills, the energy, and the atmosphere … you can kind of get something similar on the court, but I haven’t felt it like a team environment in the weight room,” she said.

“It’s taught me so much. It’s taught me work ethic, dedication, how to really be focused and driven and really dedicate all your time to something.”

She cares deeply about her athletes, not just their achievements, how much they lift, or how many games they win. Wiebe said the biggest reason why she does what she does is to be the person she needed when she was in their shoes — someone who they can go to with anything and who will make them not only a better athlete but a better person as well.

By taking a chance and playing varsity basketball in Grade 9, then taking a bigger one and leaving the country four years later, and “full sending” every opportunity after that, Wiebe has certainly made the sporting world a better place for countless athletes.

“If there’s one message I would share to people in Brandon, it’s that you don’t have to limit yourself to what’s around you,” Wiebe said.

“You can take risks, you can be curious, you can chase your goals and that might even take you across the world.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

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