Serving up success on and off the court

Emma Rutherford (Photo: Geoff McMaster)

Emma Rutherford is the first to admit she doesn't like sitting around.

The Pandas tennis team she captains has won five consecutive national championshipsYoutube video open in a new tab, a feat accomplished by only three other U of A women's varsity teams. If they win again this summer, it will be a record for any team at the university.

Rutherford has received an MVP award for every year she’s been on the team, and was nominated as U of A women’s athlete of the year in her second year.

With all her accomplishments in tennis, it’s still just what she does in her “free time.” She’s also a full-time mechanical engineering student with a minor in an extremely competitive program — biomedical engineering — which, for her, included four full-time co-op placements over the course of her degree. If you ask her how she manages to get it all done, she answers without hesitation.

“It’s what I get to do, not what I have to do. … That's been the really big change for me, compared with playing as a junior in high school.

Rutherford is also quick to acknowledge the support that makes it all possible. She knows her story is partly about how the generosity of donors is shaping her future and that of students like her. Through scholarships, mentorship and hands-on learning, she’s proving that financial support helps students on their path to excellence. 

This impact is at the heart of the Shape the Future campaign, dedicated to enhancing student success by supporting access and affordability, experiential learning and student spaces.

Growing up in Calgary, Rutherford chose the U of A partly because she was offered an engineering entrance scholarship.

“That was a huge influencing factor, truly life-changing,” she says. But the financial support is only part of the story.

“For me, engineering was a bit intimidating at first. Knowing that other people had the confidence to invest in me — to invest in students — there’s a mental or emotional side to that which isn’t talked about as much.”

Rutherford was talented enough to play tennis in the American NCAA, but she also wanted the kind of solid academic training the U of A provides. In the end, it was the Faculty of Engineering’s Co-op Program that tipped the scales, considered a national leader in cultivating young engineering talent. 

This granted Rutherford hands-on experience in a variety of engineering settings, a key pillar of the Shape the Future campaign. She is currently working for eight months in Calgary as a facilities engineer at Imperial Oil's Kearlopen in a new tab oil sands deposit — her third co-op placement so far.

Previously, she worked on biomedical engineering projects, including a placement at Polytechnique Montréalopen in a new tab, where she contributed to research on self-healing polymers, materials that can repair themselves without human intervention. One of her projects even involved working on a grip sensor for a tennis racket.

The Engineering co-op program ensures students like Rutherford can access these kinds of experiential learning opportunities, and graduate with the skills, confidence and industry connections to excel in their fields.

The support Rutherford has received on the tennis side has been equally vital, she says. Rutherford and her teammates train at the Saville Tennis Centre, a $6.5-million donor-funded facility that opened in October 2023 — thanks to the generosity of Tennis Canada, Rogers, the Canada Community Revitalization Fund and philanthropist Bruce Saville. 

Scholarships, awards, and bursaries ensure that financial barriers don’t stand in the way of student success. In addition to benefiting from a first-rate coaching staff at the Saville Community Sports CentreYoutube video open in a new tab, Rutherford has received the Owen Schlosser Memorial Awardopen in a new tab, named after a Golden Bear tennis player who was diagnosed with melanoma in 2009 while studying industrial design. He passed away at the age of 21.

Every year the Saville Community Sports Centre hosts the Owen Schlosser Fundraiser to support the award, a chance for Rutherford and other varsity tennis players to give back by running tennis clinics for adults and young kids.

“It's so easy when you're playing competitive sports to get caught up in winning and losing,” she says. “The Schlosser event is a great reminder of how fortunate we are that we get to play tennis.”

This summer she will have another shot at helping the Pandas win a sixth national championship, Rutherford’s fifth, after U of A tennis joined USportsopen in a new tab — the national sport governing body for universities in Canada — in 2023.

“We’re just so incredibly grateful to have the resources and people that we do.”