Jacqueline Fraser
Jacqueline (Matte) Fraser grew up in a sports minded family with two close relatives who had been hockey players. Her mother bought her a pair of skis when she was five which she then used on a hill on the outskirts of Vankleek Hill. She attended Vankleek Hill Collegiate where at the time there were only three sports for girls: basketball, volleyball and track and field. Encouraged to participate, Jackie, as she is affectionately known, tended toward individual sports.
She started her career teaching in a one room school on the Glen Robertson Road. Taking Physical and Health Education at Teacher’s College in order to get a job teaching French at Glengarry District High School, she encountered team sports for basically the first time.
As the only female Physical Education teacher, she ended up coaching every sport in which girls were allowed to compete, at that time basketball, volleyball and track and field. Blessed with numerous natural athletes, to learn the skills she would need to teach and coach these sports, Jackie went to Queens for two summers.
Coaching in those days moved from one season to the next with no letup. With no late buses, all practices after school, and many games on Saturdays, Jackie ran her own mini bus line, driving her girls from MacCrimmon to Bainsville in her VW Beetle, many times getting home herself to a late supper.
As the school grew, additional female teachers were hired and she could then choose which sports she wanted to coach. Coaching still almost year round, she chose soccer, gymnastics, and track and field. In her career, she coached basketball and volleyball for 10 years, winning several Glengarry Prescott Russell (GPR) championships. Her five years coaching cross-country resulted in SDG championships and athletes ranking at OFSSA, the all Ontario championships. In 18 years coaching gymnastics, her teams won six consecutive SDG titles, six consecutive EOSSA (Eastern Ontario Championships), with athletes ranking at OFSAA. In 30 years of track and field, her teams won ten GPR titles. On the soccer field Jackie’s teams won 13 SDG titles for both junior and senior girls as well as eight EOSSA titles for both levels, a record for which any coach would be more than proud. In 1989, Jackie was given the OFSAA Leadership Award in School Sports for her results in soccer. The same year, she won the Pete Beach Award, a provincial award given for Educating through Sports.
Coaching has given Jackie the opportunity to try to instil values into her teams, “how to lose with dignity and how to win with humility. Winning is not everything. It’s what one learns from the game and how one plays are that really matters.”
As well as teaching full time and coaching Jackie also found time to use her talents to become very engaged in other facets of education. Chair of the School council of Ecole Elda Rouleau for eight years and co-chair of GDHS School Council for three, Jackie also was heavily involved in the AHS-GDHS 50th Reunion in 2003. She has been president of the SDG Athletic Association as well as permanent Secretary for EOSSA
From 1980 until 1985 she was the Chair of the Board of Governors of St. Lawrence College. From 1986 to 1991, Jackie was a member of the Ontario Council of Regents, Ministry of Colleges and Universities, a member of various Interministerial steering committees such as French Language Initiative and the Nursing and Nursing Assistant Programs Standards Review. As well she also chaired their Francophone Affairs committee.
Jackie is also involved in Hôpital Glengarry Memorial Hospital and health care in general. At times, she has been the Chair for Ontario East for the educational program “Jump Rope for Heart”, a member of the Ontario East Regional Board of the Ontario Heart and Stroke foundation, a member of the Champlain’s LHIN task force on Governance, President of the HGMH Auxiliary as well as Chair of the Pastoral Care committee. She also uses her talents to instruct senior citizens in physical fitness.
At present, she is a member of the Board of Directors of HGMH, a member of the Board’s Quality committee, and Chair of the Board’s Governance, Nominating and Evaluating committee. She is also the Chair of the Nominating committee of the HGMH Auxiliary as well a member of the Pastoral Care committee.
Jackie’s contributions to her community have resulted in her nomination for Woman Athlete of the Year for the Gala de la Femme, Glengarry, in 2009, as well her nomination for Carefor Caring for Life Award for SDG-GPR in 2008. In 2009, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from North Glengarry. She is also a member of the Finance committee engaged in fundraising for the Radio Communautaire Francophone,Cornwall-Alexandria as well as active in Paroisse du Sacré-Coeur in Alexandria.
Still very active in sports, in the last few years, Jackie has participated in the Ontario Senior Games, winning a Gold Medal for Bocce in the District 8 Senior Games in 2009 as well as a Silver Medal the same year for Prediction Walking in the Provincials. In 2010, she won a Gold Medal for X-Country Skiing as well as a Bronze Medal for Bocce in District 8 Competition. In 2011, she won Gold in the District 8 Senior Games for Prediction Walking as well as a Silver Medal in the Provincial Competition for Individual Prediction X-Country Skiing, along with Gold as a member of the Team Prediction X-Country Skiing.
Jackie lives in Alexandria with her husband, Stanley (himself an Inductee in 2009). They have three children and two grand-children.
In spite of her many accomplishments and the recognition she has received since retiring from teaching, when asked about her most memorable moment, Jackie’s response was her being chosen as one of the Olympic Torch bearers in 1976 along with a few of her students. They were track stars; she wasn’t and had to train for the tryouts. She remembers training, running from St. Finnan’s to the golf course with Stanley holding the stopwatch. In typical Jackie fashion, her moment included sports, community involvement, and especially, students. For more than 30 years, she was a large part of the sports life of Glengarry girls, teaching them skills and setting standards to live by for hundreds of girls. For her many accomplishments in the community, and especially for her contribution to girls sports in Glengarry, we welcome Jacqueline (Matte) Fraser into the Glengarry Sports Hall of Fame.
