Gail Rice has been involved with sport as an official, coach, administrator, and media personality. Gail was a basketball official for 10 years and served as head of officials for the Women’s Board for 3 years. She has coached for almost 40 years. She led Mount St. Vincent University volleyball and basketball from 1970-1976, winning two titles with each team. An outstanding athlete herself, Gail played for AUAA-winning basketball and field hockey teams in university. She was also excelled at tennis, claiming doubles titles at the Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI Opens.
Gail attended St. Pat’s High School in Halifax and was named Female Athlete of the Year while leading the basketball team to Provincials. From 1984 to 2007, she returned to her alma mater and coached St. Pat’s High School women’s basketball. Her teams qualified for provincials 14 times, won Metro and Capital Region banners in 1993 and 2004, and won the provincial championship in 2004. She still continues to coach basketball at Bedford’s Charles P. Allen High school. She began her current coaching position in 2009, and the team claimed the provincial championship in 2010.
In 1981 Gail was appointed to the National Advisory Council on Fitness and Amateur Sport, serving as vice-president for two years. She was an executive with Basketball Canada and was instrumental in forming Basketball Nova Scotia. She served on the advisory board of the Nova Scotia Voyageurs and was a member of the board of directors of the AUAA while athletic director at MSVU. She was also the first special events co-ordinator and public relations director of the WBA Halifax Windjammers in 1991.
Gail’s broadcasting career began with CHNS in the early 1970s as she covered the N.S. Voyageurs and special events, such as the 1976 Canada Cup, 1977 Canada Summer Games, Canadian Women’s Curling Championship, The Brier, and Canadian Figure Skating Championships. In 1979, Gail moved to CFDR as a sport reporter. Two years later, she became the first female radio sports director in Canada. She has done sport commentary with Global TV, hosted sport shows on Halifax Cablevision, and provided play-by-play of women’s AUS basketball. You can still hear Gail on Seaside-FM, hosting a twice-weekly show and doing sports coverage.
