Roger Yachetti ‘loved Hamilton. In spades.’
Prominent city lawyer helped save the Tiger-Cats from near-certain extinction; was pivotal in season ticket ‘Drive for 95’
He was a man of, and for, his city.
Roger Yachetti, who died Sunday morning at the age of 78 as the result of a stroke, leaves enormous footprints across Hamilton’s legal, sports, Italian and charitable communities.
A prominent lawyer who was inducted into the Hamilton Gallery of Distinction 21 years ago, Yachetti will also be widely remembered for helping — “helping” seems a woefully inadequate verb — save the Hamilton TigerCats from almost-certain extinction in the early 1990s.
“He was an exceptional lawyer, an exceptional human being,” said Ivan Marini, Yachetti’s close friend and former law partner. “He was generous, almost to a fault.
“I’d say he was single-handedly responsible for saving the TigerCats.”
And perhaps for saving the Canadian Football League as
well. In 1992 after David Braley, who’d incurred massive losses in his own rescue stint as Ticats owner, couldn’t find a buyer and with the team drawing fewer fans than it had in nearly 40 years, Yachetti answered pleas from Mayor Bob Morrow and CFL commissioner Larry Smith to take the leadership role in keeping the Ticats alive. The league, down to eight teams after Montreal left in 1987, likely could not have survived the demise of another franchise.
Yachetti formed and became chair of a 12-person non-profit community group which took over the responsibility for the team. Through financial crisis after crisis — for at least one game Yachetti met the player payroll with his own funds, — the group managed to keep the team afloat, most precariously in December, 1994 when it took until the 11th hour to meet CFL-imposed targets that included raising seasons ticket commitments from 5,000 to 12,500 and selling at least $1 million in corporate sponsorships. Anything short of that and the franchise would be revoked but it survived and in early 1995 was fully transferred to owners David Macdonald and George Grant.
Nine months before that successful Drive for ’95, Yachetti had suffered a serious heart attack but was back at work, at his law practice and with the Tiger-Cats, within two weeks.
“I think it’s a tragedy that the Hamilton Sports Hall of Fame hasn’t recognized him for saving the Ticats,” Marini said. “Roger’s contribution to the team will always be an important part of our history,” Ticat owner Bob Young said in a team statement Monday. “Our sincerest condolences go out to his family and friends.”
Yachetti’s son Aaron said one of his father’s last concerns was that his tickets to last Saturday’s home game against the Calgary Stampeders would not go unused. The family made sure they were given away. He leaves his wife Cleda, son Aaron, daughters Andrea and Elizabeth, and grandchildren Jarvis and Megan. The family is still completing service arrangements.
Roger Yachetti grew up in the Brightside neighbourhood of east Hamilton, not far from Ivor Wynne Stadium, and played football at Cathedral before heading to the University of Western Ontario where he earned his law degree. He met his wife Cleda at Western. According to a 1996 profile in The Spectator they acted in a student play together.
“He had the heart of a lion,” Cleda Yachetti said. “And he always had a heart for the underdog.”
Yachetti was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1966, earning the prestigious Treasurer’s Medal, and worked for a year as a law clerk for the Chief Justice of the High Court of Ontario before opening his own practice in Hamilton. He founded the Hamilton Criminal Lawyers Association in 1972, was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1979, was a Life Bencher (board director) of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and was presented with the Emilius Irving Award in 2004 for outstanding contribution to the Hamilton Law Association.
“He was a mentor for so many criminal lawyers and litigation lawyers,” said close friend Asgar Manek. “So many who articled with him went on to become judges and defence lawyers.”
“Truly a lawyer’s lawyer,” Marini added.
Yachetti was named the Italo-Canadian Citizen of the Year by the Sons of Italy in 1995, was awarded the Paul Harris Fellowship by Rotary International and served as Director of Hamilton’s Catholic Youth Organization.
“He was a big supporter of Festitalia and all things in the Italian community here,” recalls Tony Perri, Ward 3-4 trustee for the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board. “He loved Hamilton. Aside from being a giant in the legal profession, he was just a good person.”
Manek said that on Monday he received a text from a judge who referred to Yachetti as “a legend.”
“And I can’t argue with that,” Manek said.