Feature 5: Athletics
Karen Gardiner: A StFX Icon
At any given home game
at StFX, you can count on seeing more than a few familiar faces in the bleachers.
There’s Father Stan, decked out in blue and white, and Antigonishers of all ages who come to cheer on the X-Men and X-Women. And there’s Karen Gardiner 89 , a member of the StFX Board of Governors and Co-Chair of Women of X-cellence, which supports the X-Women.
Her office – she’s a partner at McInnes Cooper in Halifax – is decorated with StFX memorabilia: a football helmet. A signed Henoc Muamba jersey. A rugby ball signed by a national champion team of X-Women. A Coach K bobble hat. A piece of the old floor from the Oland Centre.
Gardiner started playing
basketball in junior high in New Glasgow, and often hopped in the car with her father, Donald ’60, to take in a StFX game.
“I think athletics is a great way for alumni to connect,” she says. “Originally, it was another way for me to connect with my dad. He’d sit in the front row at every game.”
And Gardiner has remained a passionate StFX Athletics supporter ever since. After her own graduation from StFX, she found herself attending more and more games.”When we won the AUS basketball championship in 2023,” she notes,”the excitement among the alumni was incredible. We stormed the court!” In addition to supporting our teams, at home and on the road, Gardiner is also a significant financial contributor to StFX Athletics. Last year, she was recognized at the President’s Gala with a Lifetime Patron award, for exceeding $100,000 in total giving to StFX.
Gardiner sees athletics as a mechanism for imbuing all-too-necessary life skills in young
people: time management, leadership, and the ability to juggle many demands simultaneously.
people: time management, leadership, and the ability to juggle many demands simultaneously.
Those are qualities she looks for in potential employees and feels strongly that other employers feel the same way. In athletics, she says,
“You don’t always win. It happens in sports, and it happens in the real world. Not everything is going to go your way, but people who understand how to adapt to challenges are the ones who do well in life. Often, those are athletes.”
Mike Cavanagh, head coach of the X-Women’s rugby team, credits Gardiner with being “an amazing role model for our student-athletes as they prepare for the next chapters of their lives. If there is a StFX event, Karen is there, dressed in blue and white and leading the cheer.”
Gardiner gives equally to men’s and women’s sports, and she is committed to leveling the playing field for women in sport. “It’s 2023,” she notes, “but I still think there’s a long way to go. Women don’t get the recognition that they deserve.” She credits the work of the Women of X-cellence, which exists to bolster women’s athletics and support X-Women. “I don’t think we can overestimate the impact that those things do have,” she says – of showing female athletes support and lighting a pathway for a successful future.
"As women," Gardiner notes, "We're often conditioned to be in the background. The difference now is we have options. For young women who are part of a team, there's a lot of validation there. They know there's nothing they can't do, really."
Traditionally, philanthropists have tended to be male. Gardiner is turning that model on its head – all while tapping into her deeply competitive nature to encourage other alumni to support StFX, too. Female philanthropists are often invisible, but Gardiner allows her name to stand with her donations so that young women, in particular, understand that support comes from diverse sources. She doesn’t give to StFX for the recognition, though: “I see the connection that athletics brings, on so many levels,” she says. “There’s nothing more exciting than seeing our rugby team win a national championship.”
Even if an alumnus or alumna has been away from StFX for a period of time, she says, “You can always come back. You can always come back home.”