Featured Testimonial About Creighton University
Western Women’s Canadian Football League photos are provided by Louis Christ.
By Cindy Murphy McMahon
Creighton alumna and faculty member Candace Bloomquist, BS’01, is not one to shy away from challenges. In fact, she thrives on them — that’s how she became a women’s football legend in Canada.
(But more on that later.)
Bloomquist grew up playing sports with her friends and four siblings in northeast Nebraska. Later, as a student studying exercise science at Creighton, she was also a member of the women’s basketball team. Bloomquist played in 26 games her senior year, started in five, and led the Bluejays in 3-point field goal shooting (39.5%).
After earning a master’s degree from Kansas State University, she moved to Canada to pursue a PhD in kinesiology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
To help adjust to a new community in another country, Bloomquist turned to sports. She joined a recreational basketball league. She learned to skate and play hockey. She found football.
The sport was popular in the spring and summer in Canada, and Saskatchewan, in particular, had been dubbed a “football-mad region” by the media.
“I started playing flag football just to meet people and make friends,” says Bloomquist. “After playing flag for a few years, a group of women and I decided to create a women’s tackle team in our community and join the WWCFL (Western Women’s Canadian Football League).”
Their team was the Saskatoon Valkyries, and it soon became legendary with Bloomquist as quarterback from 2011-2014. Why quarterback?
“I liked being involved in almost every offensive play,” Bloomquist says. “Being in my mid-30s I was a bit older than some of the college-age players, so I could be a leader inside the huddle and relay information from the coaches. Also, it was a way I could play at a high level but stay relatively ‘safe’ in my ‘older’ body.”
In the 2014 championship game, Bloomquist completed 21 of 30 passes and had 347 passing yards and two touchdown passes. She was named MVP.
“Her performance only added to Valkyries lore,” wrote Mark Staffieri for Women Talk Sports. “Against the Lethbridge Steel, she picked apart their defense with remarkable precision.”
Staffieri wrote that Bloomquist was “part of one of Canada’s great modern-day female sports dynasties.”
The Valkyries “accomplished more than a series of victories and championships,” according to Staffieri. “Representing a strong chapter for female sport in both Saskatchewan and Canada, the franchise has risen to prominence in their home province, helping to put female football on the map.”
Bloomquist hung up her cleats after the fourth championship but continued to support the team by seeking sponsorships and providing color commentary on local television. She also became a certified football coach, helping high school girls gain confidence playing football.
The Rev. Dave Korth, Bloomquist’s uncle and a Catholic archdiocesan pastor in Omaha, watched her games on video.
“What I saw repeatedly was her receivers running down the field, and the defense would stop, thinking she couldn’t throw the ball that far. And then she would throw it over their heads to her receivers for a touchdown.”
After receiving her doctorate, Bloomquist worked in health promotion and education in the Saskatoon area. She felt strongly that in order to build a culture of health, “…we need to ensure our systems are designed with ‘health for all’ in mind.”
After 11 years in Canada, a desire to be closer to family brought her back to Nebraska, where she returned to her alma mater as a faculty member and is an associate professor in Creighton’s EdD in Interdisciplinary Leadership Program.
“After working in health promotion for a number of years, I recognized the importance of interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration,” Bloomquist says.
The online doctoral program attracts students in a wide assortment of fields from across the country and world who seek to make a difference in their communities and chosen professions.
“Candace was always about making the players around her look better,” says her uncle. “That’s a quality she still lives by today as she helps her students in the Interdisciplinary Leadership Program.”
Coming back to Creighton was “both familiar and brand new,” Bloomquist says.
“The library was the same, although there have been a lot of renovations to it, and the commitment to being a contemplative in action and service to others also felt very familiar.
“What was new was the autonomy and decision-making power as a faculty member. When I was a student-athlete, there wasn’t a lot of free time after courses, studying and basketball, so it is nice now to be able to see all of the many other things Creighton has to offer.”
