Tim Hasenack had a decent payday coming.
The professional golfer was having himself a pretty good day on the course when he suddenly realized he had somewhere to be.
“The day was really slow, and I was playing pretty good,” the business teacher at St. Joan of Arc Catholic High School recalled during an interview with BarrieToday. “I was two or three under par. I was in position to make a pretty good cheque and I was on the 14th hole, and I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m not going to make it.’
“So, I had to quit.”
Hasenack had a job interview at St. Joseph’s High School in Barrie. Jeff Boismier, who was playing with Hasenack and was an assistant pro at the time at the Barrie Country Club, told him to go shower at the club and then head over to the nearby school.
“I threw on my suit and had a really good interview,” said Hasenack, who had previously taught at Denis Morris Catholic School in St. Catharines. “Right off the bat he said, ‘Can you got to soccer?’
“That was kind of like my sport, so I started at St. Joe’s.”
Some 31 years later, with other teaching stops at St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School and St. Joan of Arc, and a whole lot of coaching, organizing, convening, planning and involvement in numerous high school sports over the years, Hasenack is retiring.
When the final bell rings on this school year at St. Joan of Arc, Hasenack, who has a degree in marketing and finance and a mortgage agent’s licence, will walk away from the job he’s loved so much to pursue mortgage work with his wife.
While he is looking forward to the new challenge, Hasenack knows that the final day will be a tough one.
“Yeah,” said an emotional Hasenack, barely getting the word out as he choked up. “I don’t see it as a countdown. People got the countdown on their phone. I don’t have that.”
Hasenack got to teach financing to students for 31 years and now he’ll get to help them as adults.
“I thought I’d give it a try,” he said. “I just wanted to do something different with my degree.”
Paul Milne has taught with Hasenack at St. Joan of Arc for almost 20 years now.
He says his friend and fellow teacher deserves recognition for all he has done over the years.
“He’s done a lot behind the scenes,” said Milne.
Hasenack has officiated volleyball and football, been a force on the secondary school athletic scene, be it the Simcoe Country public or Catholic board, organizing sporting events such as regional and provincial championships.
Hasenack is also one of the original founders of the successful Monsignor Clair Cup (MCC), which features hockey teams from St. Joseph’s, St. Peter’s and St. Joan of Arc and has packed the Sadlon Arena (formerly known as the Barrie Molson Centre) with 3,000 to 4,000 screaming students for over 23 years now.
“The guy can’t stay still. He’s always moving,” said Milne. “If he has an idea in his head, it goes. We’re similar in that way, but man he’s had that enthusiasm for a long time.
“He’s a great, great guy,” Milne added. “A visionary when it comes to high school sports and in marketing them and has given to the community immensely over the years.”
Milne and staff members aren’t the only ones who will miss Hasenack.
“The students, they are going to miss him,” said Milne.
From the day he arrived at St. Joseph’s, Hasenack has sought to bring culture, tradition and a whole ton of enthusiasm to the school sports he gets involved with.
Something he experienced when he attended the University of North Florida, Jacksonville.
“Up here, the sports were not what I expected,” he said.
At St. Joe’s when he was coaching soccer, he brought a band out to try and create “some hoopla.”
Hasenack spent three years at St. Joseph’s before they opened St. Peter’s in the city's south end and moved him over.
He started the soccer team.
“I had, maybe, two soccer players and the rest were hockey players,” he said. “We were literally teaching guys to kick.”
They ended up beating Holy Trinity to go to the Georgian Bay championships that year.
“Because of the grind and the intestinal fortitude of these kids,” he said. “We had two three soccer players at the most. It was awesome.”
He helped teacher Dan Williams start a hockey team when the nearest team to play was in Parry Sound.
Hasenack and now-retired teacher Vince Cardarelli wanted to begin to build tradition at St. Peter’s.
“It was like, ‘Let’s kind of make something like the Ryder Cup,’ because of being a golfer,” said Hasenack, who spent five years at the school before taking a job at St. Joan of Arc. “Get the two schools to play against each other and try to win it every year.”
Hence the MCC was born. They would rotate sports every year with hockey one year, volleyball and then basketball followed. A teacher at St. Joe’s helped with the name, saying they should name it Monsignor Clair, who was the father of education in Simcoe County.
St. Joseph’s teacher Michele May would suggest they focus the event on hockey. With music, announcers, students from St. Joseph’s and St. Peter’s bused in, more than 3,000 packed the rink.
St. Joan of Arc came on board in 2008. Teacher Jennifer Lemieux brought in students who had learned flash dances.
“It was like, ‘OK, we’re going to get our whole school and we’ll just start dancing in the middle of the MCC and that’s how that started,” said Hasenack. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s awesome!’”
The fun, the smiles on the faces make all the time, work and effort worth it. Providing memories that students will carry a lifetime with them.
“I think that’s what he gets out of it,” said Milne. “He sees the community benefiting from himself and from what the people helping him are doing. He’s never asked for accolades or awards or any of those things. He’s not really that kind of guy.”
Hasenack has also helped put together a St. Joan of Arc Knights ball hockey team for special needs students and he’s done that for years.
“It’s one of those events where teams from all school boards come,” said Milne, who works with Hasenack in the school’s business department. “It’s a great community gathering. He brings the community together.
“Putting all these events takes time over and above what he’s expected to do.”
Hasenack also doesn’t hesitate to help other schools. When Eastview Secondary School was hosting the OFSAA golf championships, he helped the school organize the tournament at the Barrie Country Club.
“If there’s a way I can help out with organizing and stuff like that, I always try and contribute,” he said.
He also helped put together the 2019 OFSAA hockey championships, hosted by St. Joan of Arc.
“We had such a strong team of people and we crushed it,” said Hasenack.
He even helped with last year’s OFSAA volleyball championships at Holy Trinity, handling the advertising and marketing.
It’s all about doing what he can to make each event a special one for the students.
“It was trying to make it so that when they came on to the field or rink that, ‘Wow, this is a special event. This is a championship. This means something,’” said Hasenack. “And that all goes with having the small details of having the proper program made up in colour, everybody, like OFSAA hockey, having a take home puck at the dinner table.
“The noisemakers provided for MCC, the kids playing a soccer championship and having the band come out and play O Canada. It was just so they could remember that.”
Milne is happy his friend is moving on to do something he wants, but admits he’ll miss him seeing him every day.
“Things will never be the same without him,” said Milne. “He brings a sense of excitement to the classroom. He brings that spark when he gets an idea in his head. He’s got the enthusiasm, and the kids pick up on that, too.”
Hasenack was the guy in the background getting it going, while on the school PA system trying to sell the event. He’s even done play-by-play.
“Any time I get to talk, I love it,” Hasenack said with a laugh.
Hasenack still plans to be involved in one way or the other in schools and the community.
“If I get opportunity to be involved in sports, be it a convenor, I’ll do it for sure,” he said.
Still, he knows it’s time to move on. What will he miss most?
“The people. No brainer,” said Hasenack. “People that you’re working with, the kids that are giving you 1,000 per cent and running into walls to get that ball. The kids that are hustling and grinding in the classroom. The teachers that are having fun and sacrificing family time to run a team. All coaches do that.
“It’s just the people, day in and day out, that I would miss for sure. So, I’m going to do my best to make sure I am still involved in that in as many different ways as possible.”
