Former Acadia football coach passes away
Robert Vespaziani led Axemen to first intercollegiate championship
On Jan. 20, Acadia lost one of its football heroes.
Robert Vespaziani passed away in Lakefield, Ont., with his family, including his wife Sheila, at his side.
Hired in 1969 as an assistant coach by then-head coach George Hemond, Vespaziani became head coach in 1971 following Hemond’s departure back to the US.
Known to his players as Coach Ves, Vespaziani led his Axemen to their first Atlantic Intercollegiate Championship game in 1975 with a win over rival Saint Mary’s. That earned Acadia the right to host the Calgary Dinosaurs in the Atlantic Bowl, where they were defeated by the Dinos.
In 1976 and 1977, Coach Ves guided his squad to two College Bowl appearances in 1976 and 1977 and fell short in delivering Acadia’s first football national championship.
Vespaziani had the gratifying experience of having three of his players - Alan Charuk, Bob Stracina and Bob Cameron - win the prestigious Hec Crighton Trophy, presented annually to the best university football player in the country.
In 1979, Coach Ves moved on to the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers and his Axemen, led by John Huard, won their first of two national championships.
Vespaziani spent 27 years in the CFL as a head coach in 1986 with Calgary and 25 seasons as an assistant coach or in the front office. Following his retirement from the professional ranks, Coach V joined the staff at Queen’s University Gaels and would periodically return to the site of his first Canadian coaching job at Acadia.
During the summer months, Vespaziani would return to the Annapolis Valley to visit friends who remained in the community. He would always drop by the Acadia football office to visit head coach Jeff Cummins.
“We were lucky enough to have Coach V actually coach our guys up one training camp a number of years ago and I got to see the master at work,” said Cummins.
“Coach had such a way about him that inspired men as he encouraged and challenged them. I am very proud to say we were friends and he was a great mentor and role model for me as a coach but even more as a person. I will miss seeing coach show up at the office with a bag of apples or a dozen muffins, ready to sit down and talk football, coaching, life or whatever happened to be going on that day. We lost a great man last week but his spirit and memory will never leave.”
While his time at Acadia was nearly 50 years ago, he was always attracted back to Acadia, his beginning in the profession of coaching. Inducted into the Acadia Sports Hall of Fame in fall of 1992, Coach V returned often when he had the chance including the Acadia Football Coach’s Roast of 2015 and this past Homecoming in mid-October.
“I knew of Coach V, or Bob Vespaziani, was a huge CFL and Saskatchewan Roughriders fan way before I became a coach and Athletic director at Acadia University. He’s a legend here, way more than a Hall of Famer. Bob is simply one of the critical builders of the values, principles, and pursuit of excellence we still strive to achieve to this day here in our Athletic department,” said executive director of Athletics Kevin Dickie.
“We all loved his annual visits on campus, full of council for Coach Cummins and myself. He will be missed beyond these words. Our whole program is about our present group standing on the shoulders of those before us. Bob Vespaziani is in a select group of people at the top of that list.”
In the hallways of the Acadia Athletics Complex hangs a testament to Vespaziani’s influence on Acadia Athletics, a phrase he believed in and preached during his time as a coach: “If an athlete wants to achieve excellence, they only have two choices: accept the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret.”