The first inductees of the Holy Trinity Academy Knights wall-of-fame helped put the school on the athletic map.
In return, they were rewarded with first-rate education and mapping out interesting lives after high school.
Stephen Gotch (HTA Class of 2003) and Nick Baldwin (Class of 2000) were inducted during the Knights Awards banquet on Thursday at HTA.
Gotch was a standout volleyball player who played at U of C and UBC after graduating from HTA. He went on to play for Team Canada and just finished winning the Swiss Cup with his professional team in Switzerland.
“I pretty much got my start in volleyball at HTA,” the 30-year-old Gotch said in an interview from his Vancouver home. “When I stopped playing hockey, I decided to play the sports the high school had to offer. I actually liked basketball more at the time but as time went on, I found volleyball to be more of a challenge.”
He was up to the challenge.
After HTA he fine tuned his game at Mount Royal College before going on to the U of C Dinos and then UBC. He also played a year with Team Canada’s Beach volleyball team during his final year of university.
“I made the switch to the indoor team for Team Canada in 2009,” Gotch said. “I played there for about six years. The team that just qualified for the Olympics (last week), I knew most of those guys. It was just a matter of time before they qualified.”
Taking up the game at HTA has allowed Gotch to fill his passport and work visas. He has played for professional volleyball teams in Italy, Turkey, Greece, France, Belgium along with six months plying his trade in Libya.
“Over the last seven years I have lived more outside the country than I have in Canada,” he said with a chuckle. “The biggest thing for me is dealing with those different cultures outside of Canada. I think that helps with everyday life to experience all those things.”
He’s not done yet.
“I estimate I have five good years left,” Gotch said.
It’s a long ways from those days at Holy Trinity Academy — then at the present St. John Paul II Collegiate.
“When I heard I was inducted to their Wall of Fame that was special,” Gotch said. “That school really meant a lot to me.”
Planting a firm post
Nick Baldwin was a post in the true-sense of the word.
He was the first-elite athlete that remained firmly rooted at HTA, giving the school’s budding sports’ program in the late 1990s and early 2000s legitimacy.
“Nick’s decision to stay at Holy Trinity Academy paved the way for all future high-calibre athletes to truly believe that it was not only possible to get a great education here, but extra-curricular activities were on the rise as well,” said Knights basketball coach Sam Aiello. About a six-foot-seven rise in Baldwin’s case, he controlled the boards with his strength and albatross-like wing span. He also had a soft-touch with the jumper. However, it wasn’t his physical prowess that got the then High River native to HTA, it was faith.
“It was Catholic education and the academic education that was well known,” Baldwin said.
He had good timing.
“I came at a time when the sports programs were taking a turn for the better,” Baldwin said.
During the 1997-’98 basketball season — just the third year of the school’s existence — the Knights won the 2A South Central zones and a trip to provincials for the first time. A year, later they would do the then thought of unthinkable. They beat the Foothills Falcons for the first time.
“We were considered the little brothers of Okotoks,” Baldwin said. “To have that win meant that we had done what we came to do — turn the school program around.”
He credits Aiello with helping him make the jump from HTA to the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns in 2000.
“Sam was a mentor for me,” Baldwin said. “He assisted me in using the talents I had to bring them together for the platform to take into post-secondary sports.”
He established a pretty strong foundation with the Pronghorns himself. Baldwin was selected to the Canada West University rookie all-star squad, twice he was Canada West rebound leader and twice the Pronghorns MVP, a team he captained (Baldwin’s U of L career rebound record was surpassed by 2008 HTA grad Derek Waldner).
Baldwin was also an All-Canadian academic all-star.
He graduated with a bachelor of education degree. He currently owns a drilling company and has three children with his wife Christa at their Okotoks home. During the days Baldwin was wearing the Knights’ black-and-and-white and he was dominating the boards, he had one-wide-eyed junior high school student looking up to him.
“Nick was a huge idol because we were just getting into basketball at HTA and Nick was just a beast out there,” Gotch said.
Baldwin admired Gotch from a far.
“Throughout my years at U of L, I heard about their athletes and the talent that Steve Gotch had,” Baldwin said.
