2021 Friend of the College Award

This year, the college is excited to present the award to Dr. Marlys Misfeldt.

“It is an unexpected honour to receive the ’Friend of the College’ award. It is exciting to have the many hours of sitting on hard bleachers acknowledged in this way,” said Dr. Misfeldt. 

Dr. Misfeldt is a founding member of the Huskie Health Care Coalition and has shared her expertise with Huskie Athletics and the College of Kinesiology since 1992. The Huskie Health Care Coalition is comprised of physicians, surgeons, and health practitioners who provide services to student-athletes at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2019, Dr. Misfeldt retired from the coalition.

During her involvement with the program, Dr. Misfeldt supported many exhibition games, tournaments, championships and was the team physician for the Huskie wrestling and basketball teams ensuring our student-athletes were able to compete safely, and received proper care as needed when situations arose.

“I volunteered for Huskie Athletics for 24 years, watching many of the U of S sports and acted as the team physician for wrestling and basketball for the last number of years. I particularly enjoyed meeting the athletes and getting to know them.  It was much more stressful to meet them for the first time following an injury and making hard decisions about returning to their sport.”

Although dedicated to those two teams, Dr. Misfeldt would treat athletes from all teams when needed and was the go-to for skin checks. Her time was precious but always given freely in supporting the field of sport medicine as she sat on several boards and was the acting President of the Sports Medicine and Science Council of Saskatchewan. She volunteered as the team physician with the Canadian International Traditional Karate Federation and as the Chief Medical Officer at provincial, national, and international karate competitions.

When asked why she has volunteered all these years, her answer was simple, the athletes.

“My main motivation was that I was interested in working with athletes. I felt strongly about working to provide a safer environment to participate in their sports and a level of security if they get injured.”

Described by her nominators are an undeniably strong female role model in sports medicine, we are honoured to present this years Friend of the College Award to Dr. Marlys Misfeldt.