Hall of fame 2018 class enshrined
Five athletes honoured for remarkable achievements
John White, Steve Toll and Pat McCready prefer commas to exclamation points in stories about their athletic achievements.
Exclamation points, while big, bold and bravos for a job well done, represent a certain finality, like induction into a hall of fame for a lifetime of achievement.
White, 61, Toll and McCready, both 44, aren’t ready to retire to the sidelines and rest on their laurels.
“Lifetime achievement? Definitely not, I’m still as passionate as ever doing what I do teaching golf and coaching golf,” said White, among five people inducted into the St. Catharines Sports Wall of Fame.
“I’m honoured by this award, but I hope it’s not the swansong.”
White, head professional at Beechwood Golf Course for the past 28 years, founded the Niagara District Junior Golf Tour in 1993. Along with fellow volunteer Rose Di Lonardo, he has been hands on running the tour ever since.
“I’ve offered for people to do it, but I still
love it, I still do it no matter what,” he said before Thursday night’s induction ceremony at Meridian Centre. “I still love getting up at 5:30 in the morning going to the golf course, checking the juniors in and doing their scoring and seeing their faces.
“I coach a lot of them, too, so it’s rewarding to coach them as well as seeing them play in the tournaments.”
Though he golfed at the East Tennessee State for one year after joining the team as a “walkon” and spent 1 ½ years as a tour player competing in Australia, Florida and across Canada, White’s proudest achievement doesn’t have anything to do with golf.
When asked what one line he would like to have on his wall of fame plaque, White answered “great father.”
Four of his five children: stepson Bobby, daughters Courtney, Kayla and Emily have competed on the tour.
Toll traded his gloves and stick for a coach’s whistle and clipboard following a 17-year playing career in the National Lacrosse League.
“I was fortunate enough win win five NLLs, a Minto Cup here in St. Catharines, two Mann Cups, I won two world championships with Team Canada,” he said. “I think that it’s an exclamation mark on my playing career,
but hopefully not on my coaching career.”
Bringing the Minto back to St. Catharines tops the agenda of unfinished business for Toll, who is coming back for a second season as head coach of the St. Catharines Jr. A Athletics.
“It’s been about 12 years since they won one, so we’re about due here in St. Catharines,” said the CN Rail employee who has lived in Oshawa for the past 17 years. “Hopefully, we’ll get one soon.”
Would he like to be back in 15 years celebrating the enshrinement of Steve Toll the coach?
“I don’t know if they do that,” he answered with a chuckle. “I think it would be something to look forward to.
“I would just rather win a Minto Cup here for the boys, that’s for sure.”
McCready joined his father, the late Robert (Buff) McCready, on the David S. Howes St. Catharines Sports Hall of Fame. He
followed his father’s footsteps taking up coaching after a 17year pro career in the NLL.
McCready was also following in his father’s footsteps when he first took up a sport.
“I found an old lacrosse stick of my dad’s, starting throwing the ball around,” McCready said. “Next year, he started coaching the team.
“He was always a great coach to me, best coach I ever had.”
Buff McCready was a hall of fame goalie, and the remarkably the point-getter in the father-andson twosome.
“I was never able to score on him,” McCready said with a laugh. “In fact, he probably had more points playing as a goaltender than I had playing as a player.”
The 21-year Ontario Provincial Police veteran is proud to join his father on the wall.
“It’s another way remember Buff again, he’s been gone 10 years,” he said. “Any timeyou get to remember him and share something with him, it’s very special.”
Robert (Buff) McCready died 10 years ago at age 67.
Like Toll, McCready regards his induction as a comma separating the playing and coaching phases of career. McCready is proud of the NLL titles and Team Canada appearances he made as a player but also what he is giving back to the game now that he’s coaching.
McCready, whose daughters Maddie, 10; and Mia, 7; play hockey as well as lacrosse, is trying to start a field program for girls.
“Lacrosse is a great game and they’re both excelling at it, and there are a lot of scholarship opportunities for girls south of the border.”
Rounding out the 2018 induction class are Buffy Williams, nee Andrews, for rowing; and the late Paul Papineau, for fastball.
Though Williams didn’t pursue rowing as her full-time sport until she was 17 competing for Holy Cross Catholic Secondary School, she went on to represent Canada at the Summer Olympics three times.
She won a bronze medal at the 2000 Games in Sydney. Eight years later she became the first woman to row for Canada at a world championship and in the Olympics after becoming a mother.
Her eldest child, son Tavin, had just turned 10 months when Williams started training for the 2007 World Championships and for the Summer Olympics the following year in Beijing.
Canada finished sixth in the women’s eight at the worlds and a “heartbreaking fourth” at the Olympics.
“If all fourths are heartbreaking, that one really was,” she said in telephone interview from Orlando where she is at Walt Disney World with Tavin and daughters Kyla, 9, and Tate, 6.
Williams, whose husband Barney Williams won silver at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, said her greatest accomplishment in rowing was representing her country.
She pointed out rowers who are training for the national team have blades that are painted white with two red stripes or just white.
“It’s not until you earn a spot at the world championships or the Olympics when you actually get to put the Maple Leaf in the middle of the your blade,” Williams, now 41, said. “That is such an incredible honour, I was always so proud to have that on my blade.”
Parents Claire and Susie Alexander still live in St. Catharines as does brother Gary who accepted the plaque on her behalf.
Papineau, who died at age 69 in 2011, excelled at fastball despite losing his right arm in a table saw accident when he was 15 years old. He also coached hockey and was an active volunteer in the community.