“Payback Time”: UBC field hockey legend Barb Hart Harris gives back to the sport that shaped her
The $75,000 gift is the largest ever given to the women’s field hockey program
“I could hardly wait for Saturday to arrive,” says Barb Hart Harris (B.A. 1957, M.Ed. 1984, SFU). Saturday was game day for the women’s field hockey team, which she joined in 1953.
“The greatest time of my life was when I played field hockey,” she recalls. A lot was different back then: Barb showed up to her first practice never having held a field hockey stick. She knew she wanted to play sports — and the field hockey team had the best record and got to travel to tournaments across the Northwest, an appealing prospect to a farm girl from the northern edge of Port Moody. She took a chance and was selected for the team.
Barb went on to become a stand-out member of UBC’s winning field hockey team, which continues to dominate today. In time, she was elected president of the UBC Women’s Athletic Association and went on to play field hockey at the national and international level. She was even recently inducted into the Canadian Field Hockey Hall of Fame. Throughout it all, she made lifelong friends who still mean the world to her almost sixty years later.
“When I stopped playing hockey at a championship level, I went back to playing for the UBC Alumnae team,” she recalls. “That was a very enjoyable time, and led me to start the ‘payback’ phase of my life; payback for my wonderful experiences in hockey, and for my great good fortune in having UBC as my first alma mater.”
Recently, Barb’s generous “payback” mentality led her to give a tremendous gift of $75,000 to women’s field hockey — the largest gift ever received by the program. The donation will create an endowment to support the program long-term, as well as a discretionary fund that will be used for athlete support, touring funds, and more.
After attending the virtual Thunderbird Breakfast earlier this year, she learned how difficult the pandemic had been for the field hockey team, including the cancellation of key fundraising events.
“My hope is that [Coach] Poonam [Sandhu] will be able to use the gift to help recover from this year’s challenges. And I want her to feel that she has support from field hockey alumnae — because she does,” Barb says.
Barb herself received scholarships and bursaries that allowed her to pursue sport and complete her degree, and she recognizes how important that type of support can be for student-athletes. Her donation builds on decades of annual gifts to UBC. In 2019, in honour of her daughter, Gayle Harris, a Children’s Librarian, Barb established the Gayle Harris Memorial Education Fund, to generate annual scholarship/bursaries for Surrey Libraries staff who have started their Masters of Library and Information Studies, a requirement for becoming a librarian. Barb has also established a number of endowments at SFU in honour or her family members.
“Student-athletes have many costs throughout their school year,” says Coach Sandhu. “Providing them with this level of support will directly benefit expenses pertaining to tuition, housing, books, resources and more. Alumna like Barb are setting student-athletes up for success as they allow them to focus on athletic and academic success.”
Coach Sandhu also notes that this type of significant gift “reinforces the importance of female sports,” which is the focus of
UBC Athletics’ Women In Sport Initiative. The program, which Barb’s donation contributes to, aims to bridge the gap between men’s and women’s funding for student-athletes.
“It’s been a difficult year for sport,” said Sarah Barclay, Director of Development and Alumni Engagement for UBC Athletics. “But donors like Barb give me hope. Her enthusiasm and her generosity are an inspiration to all of us.”
“It’s very important to support women in all their endeavours, and I think it’s especially important that women support women,” Barb says. She is excited by the growth and successes of women’s sports in Canada since she was on the field — such as the Canadian Women’s Soccer team, which took home Canada’s only team gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
“We have so many positive examples now,” she said. “Women can have a career in sport!” Thanks to exemplary alumni and donors like Barb, that positive growth will continue for years to come.
