Thompson Rivers University Athletic Director Curtis Atkinson has been promoted to the President of the Canada West Board of Directors.

“It felt good to get a vote of confidence from the other members. I was nominated and my colleagues supported it and felt I might have something to offer in the role,” he told NL Sports.

His new role also gets him a seat on the U Sports Board of Directors at the national level. Atkinson says it’s a challenging time to be an athletic director during the COVID-19 pandemic as they have university teams training and playing some exhibition games.

“Like everyone we’re managing week-to-week. It’s been challenging. Despite all of our best efforts to put plans in place and try to be forward thinking, we also realize it can change from week-to-week,” he added. “We’ve seen that in our province the last week.”

Atkinson, who was named TRU Athletic Director in January 2018, says they have had no known exposure to COVID-19 at this point, but he realizes it could be ‘on our doorstep tomorrow.’