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“I love the challenge,” says Avery Brevett. She’s describing her passion for volleyball and her career as an accountant. Both, she explains, are about achieving balance and being completely engaged in achieving a goal.

Striving for balance. Mental and physical commitment. Tirelessly working towards achieving goals. These were all lessons Avery learned from her coaches Frank and Rozika Sulatycki. She carries these lessons with her almost 20 years later.  

Avery Brevett is as Seneca alum and decorated varsity athlete. She was very successful in her four-year athletic career during 1990s.

Every year that Avery played she won a gold medal, and in her first two years was named a Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) All-Canadian player.  In her final years at Seneca, she was twice selected as Seneca’s Female Athlete of the Year and named a CCAA All-Star.  After becoming part of the Ontario Collegiate Athletic Association (OCAA) Women’s Volleyball All-Millennium Team in 2000, she began working as an assistant coach alongside Frank and Rozika.

Frank and Rozika Sulatycki, a married coaching duo, were inducted into the CCAA Hall of Fame in 2016 and are the first couple to be honoured together in the coaching category.

The now retired pair coached together for 19 years and led their teams to seven straight OCAA Championships and three CCAA bronze medals. This incredible track record led the Sulatyckis to be named OCAA Coach of the Year six times.

What is most remarkable about Frank and Rozika is their ability to inspire and motivate. Avery explains that her coaches taught her more than volleyball skills. They taught her life skills.

“We had binders that were almost like part of our uniforms. If you didn’t have your binder you weren’t playing,” Avery recalls. “We would write our goals in them [...] We would have to set goals for every practice and every game and then follow-up with Frank and Rozika.”

In an interview for Varsity Sports at Seneca, Frank and Rozika shared that these goals didn’t have to be about volleyball. In fact, they encouraged players to set life goals.

“All the goal setting really did transfer. When you went into an interview you had already done your research and preparation. Frank and Rozika taught you to do that,” says Avery.

While challenge feeds her self-acclaimed “fighting spirit,” Avery admits that it took time for her to learn that Frank and Rozika’s emphasis on goal-setting wasn’t all about winning. It was also about learning balance.

“Balancing it all was really difficult,” Avery recalls, “but there were so many people there to help me get through.”

In an interview with Frank and Rozika, the pair said they had players set goals for their life outside of volleyball to teach balance.  After all, balance is the most important goal in academics, in athletics, and in life.