Colourful stories of an inspiring man
Two months after his death from kidney and heart failure at the age of 73, how best to remember Earl De La Perralle?
On Saturday, people who knew Earl decided to remember him by sharing stories of how such a colourful and caring man changed their lives for the better and Sun Youth, the organization he cofounded, announced a scholarship in his name.
After the football team he used to coach won their first home game of the season, those who knew Earl gathered at Sun Youth headquarters to share their memories of the man who gave so much to his community and didn’t ask for anything in return.
Sid Stevens co-founded Sun Youth with Earl. The duo started a handwritten newspaper in 1954. They invested the proceeds in organizing sports teams and uniforms and the group grew into the Sun Youth Organization, named for their paper, the Clark Street Sun.
Stevens recalled one instance when he and Earl raised enough money to build an outdoor skating rink in a neighbour’s backyard, soliciting the fire department to spray water to make the icy surface.
“It was cold when we watered it. The next day it went up to five Celsius,” Stevens said. “It melted and flooded all the houses. We hid for a week.”
Daniel Grégoire was a football coach at Sun Youth for 15 years. He remembers Earl as a selfless, tough and caring man.
He recalled a time when Earl travelled to Penn State University to try to pick up some football equipment for Sun Youth.
“He heard that they were selling some of their used gear,” Grégoire said.
“I don’t know how he did it but finally he left with all the equipment. Then he had to go through the border with all that. He didn’t pay a cent.”
Leslie Hughes, a longtime basketball coach and friend of Earl’s, remembered him as a man who embodied the attributes of respect and trust.
Earl once asked Hughes to put a team of 10 girls together to go play a game at the prestigious Hampton Coliseum in Virginia. Hughes asked Earl who they were playing and why they would be playing in a collegiate basketball stadium. Earl responded: “Don’t worry. You’ll like it. You’ll have a great time.”
Hughes and his team of local kids made the trip down to Virginia. To their surprise, Earl had scheduled them to play against the American Eastern All-Star collegiate team. They lost, but it was a close game.
“The other team was wearing Nike everything. We had three dollar T-shirts and shorts that I borrowed,” he said.
After that, Hughes and Earl started recruiting basketball players from across the province. Over the next decade, 70 of the players that went through their program received full-ride scholarships to American universities and every single one of their players ended up getting a university degree.
“If Earl didn’t get that going, looking at all those kids, who knows what might have happened,” Hughes said.
Dimitrios Manolopoulos coaches the Sun Youth hornets midget football team, the same team Earl coached. Manolopoulos played for Sun Youth as a teen. Earl was one of the main reasons he stayed in school.
“When I was a student here, I was playing midget football and I thought I was a bright and intelligent man and I didn’t think I should continue with my studies,” he said. “So Earl decided to bring me to a place where there was a lot of manual labour.”
Earl set Manolopoulos up working to clean out boxes in a dark, dusty room for a major company. Earl told him that he could do this for the rest of his life or he could finish his studies.
“So after a couple of shifts I said I was gonna go back to school,” Manolopoulos said. “I got my bachelor’s in economics from Concordia.”
For the Sun Youth organization and the community that surrounds it, Earl De La Perralle’s death was a great loss but they say that they will continue to honour his memory by continuing his legacy of giving back to the community.