A TRUE CHAMPION:
Former city councillor, journalist, promoter and organizer leaves an indelible mark
Ron Hayter was a lot of different things to a lot of different Edmontonians. But to me, he was a wonderful combination of oldschool character, promoter and badger, the last one being what we used to call sports association executives who wore blazers with badges sewn over the heart.
Hayter, who died at age 81 on Sunday, was Edmonton’s longest serving city councillor.
Hayter came to Edmonton as a journalist and worked mostly in the general assignment pool at the Edmonton Journal, but he was in his element as a sports page guy — not the one covering the news, but being involved in the news.
Not that he didn’t have an interesting history as a reporter. The native of Hudson’s Bay, Sask., got his Journal job as a result of working as a reporter for the Alaska Highway News. He had the scoop, as a 22-year-old, on the collapse of the Peace River Bridge. Part of that backstory is he was making an appearance on the CBC’s long-running TV show, Front Page Challenge, the night his first child was born to discuss the scoop.
An amateur boxer of some note, Hayter’s real love was baseball. He played, coached and managed, occasionally all at the same time, in the Sunburst Baseball League.
That’s probably where the promoter in him developed.
He also ran a public relations outfit and promoted the Edmonton Boat & Trailer Show every year and came up with endless ideas to get high-profile media members on stage.
The Hayter-promoted Boat Shows were usually good for a sports column, often having sports components, such as the year he brought in Mickey Mantle to face fastball pitcher Eddie Feigner of The King and His Court.
For several years he also promoted Snowmobile Races in Wetaskiwin, often involving famed race car drivers such as Gilles Villeneuve.
As head of the Edmonton Boxing & Wrestling Commission, Hayter had to deal with Nick Zubray, one of the most colourful characters in all of Canadian sports history.
Then there was the scheduled Mike Tyson heavyweight fight here that was cancelled with the Edmonton Boxing & Wrestling Commission doctor diagnosing him as having come down with costochondritis.
The redhead played a significant role in guiding and at times even arm-twisting his city council colleagues to vote for worthy sporting propositions that came in front of that often clueless group.
But his true talent was as an inspired badger. He travelled the world with amateur boxing and baseball circles holding all sorts of positions and titles.
He sat on local, national and international bodies of boxing and even judged some WBA bouts.
He represented Canada with the International Baseball Federation for 18 years and was on the technical committee for baseball at the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.
Hayter founded the Edmonton International Baseball Foundation that brought six international events including a World Championship and Continental Cups and the first Women’s World Championship.
Some of my favourite summer evenings over the years involved covering those events involving the Cuban teams down at Renfrew and Ducey Park before they built Telus Field.
Hayter and his group ran terrific tournaments.
“When he was at City Hall, Muhammad Ali visited him and gave him a pair of signed boxing gloves,” remembers friend Terry Demers.
“Years ago, he met with his friend Fidel Castro in Cuba, they watched a game, then went together to the Olympic Committee to have baseball put in the Summer Olympics. They were successful. They spoke on the phone through the years. Then when we hosted the 2008 AAA Juniors in Edmonton, four Cubans defected, early in the week.
“Fidel’s brother called City Hall to speak to Ron. I could tell the call was authentic and spoke with Raul for a short while, explaining that Ron wasn’t in the office. Then Fidel got on the phone and demanded to speak to Ron. Just then Ron came down the hall, and took the call.
“He said, ‘Fidel, my friend, how are you?’ Fidel said Edmonton was the scum of the earth, Ron allowed four guys to defect. Fidel asked if he could send a couple of armed guards for each end of the dugout.
Ron said no guns were allowed on the baseball field. They finally agreed to allow the Cuban bus to go to the back of Telus Field to pick up the Cuban players and kept a constant watch on them for the rest of the tournament.
“Two of the players showed up with the Boston Red Sox two years later.”
Whatever Hayter became involved in, it generally benefited Edmonton greatly.
Ron went in the front door of the Alberta and Edmonton Sports Hall of Fame, as well as the Canadian Boxing and Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
And hopefully Ron Hayter went to his grave comfortable in the knowledge that he was, in a most colourful way, a true Champion in the City of Champions.