After a successful six years as head coach at the Club L’Envol in Blainville, Que., where he led several divers to national team status, Devon Butters is now the program lead for the Gold Medal Pathway Program and for the Enrichment Program at the newly created Montreal Diving Institute at the Olympic Stadium.
The Institute was launched in December 2020 and provides a complete program for the top Canadian divers and also includes a junior component with the Enrichment program. Few countries offer such a program and the hope is it will give Canada an edge internationally.
Butters is a former diver and started coaching at age 16 at an outdoor pool in Pointe-Claire, Que., in 2008 where he was discovered by national coach and former Olympian, David Bedard. He worked at the Pointe-Claire Diving Club for six years before heading to l’Envol in 2014 where he became the head coach in his third year. Under Butters, l’Envol was noted for developing strong junior divers and the club ended CAMO’s 20-year reign as team champion at the junior nationals.
The 2020 season was challenging for the coaches says Butters. He says the coaches have needed to be creative at times to make it fun for their pupils both on-line but at practice as well with no competition scheduled.
In 2018, he was named Diving Canada’s junior coach of the year and received the same honour from Plongeon-Québec in 2017 and 2018.
He is a graduate of languages and classic literature at Concordia University.
