Brock coach in spotlight
Marty Calder will be inducted into hall of fame as an athlete
Headlines at the junior/senior Canadian Wrestling Championships taking place at Brock University won’t just be made on the mat.
Another highlight Saturday, March 25, will be the induction of Wrestling Canada Lutte Hall of Fame’s Class of 2017. Longtime Brock wrestling coach Marty Calder, a two-time Olympian and seven-time national champion, is being enshrined as an athlete and William Hogarth as a builder.
Calder said he feels honoured to be recognized by the sport that has given him so much.
“Wrestling has given me so much life experience, challenge and camaraderie,” the St. Catharines native and Lakeport Secondary School graduate said. “It has allowed me to pursue high performance both as a coach and as an athlete and that kept me on the path to productivity versus destruction.”
“Life-long friendships in this sport have enriched my life and help me to teach myself how to be better.”
In addition to wrestling at 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and four years later at the Summer Games in Atlanta, Calder finished fifth at the 1993 Senior World Championships, won gold at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and bronze at the 1999 Pan Am Games.
With five Ontario championships, four at the national level and instrumental in leading the Badgers to their first Canadian championship, Calder was one of the most decorated athletes in Brock history. He was the university’s male athlete of the year three teams, was named a first-team All Canada and was inducted into the Brock Hall of Fame in 2003 along with the school’s first national championship team.
As a coach and athlete, Calder has been a part of all 24 national and 35 provincial wrestling championships Brock has won in wrestling.
Calder, in his ninth season as head wrestling coach at Brock, has coached three-time Olympic medallist Tonya Verbeek, world champion Jessica MacDonald, as well as Olympians Evan MacDonald and Saeed Azbayjani.
Hogarth served as team manager for two Olympic Games teams, two senior Pan Am championship teams, as well as two junior and two senior world championships teams.
He was the manager for Ontario’s Canada Games team and on three occasions served as provincial team manager for Ontario. He volunteered at the 2015 Pan Am Games held in Toronto and across southern Ontario and at the last year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“It is very humbling to be included in such select fraternity as the WCL Hall of Fame,” Hogarth said. “Thank you to all the people who I have worked with through the years who had a great deal to do with my success.”
Said Wrestling Canada Lutte president Dan Ryan, “The opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of these individuals, in their home province, is a particularly special occasion.”