Last remaining member of ’39 Kits team to be at Hall of Fame induction
Lloyd Williams among players who went on to serve in Second World War
Second World War veteran Lloyd Williams, believed to be the last surviving member of the 1939 Kitsilano high school Vancouver and District football champions, will represent his former mates this afternoon when his team is formally inducted into the B.C. Football Hall of Fame.
The virtual Hall, the brainchild of late B.C. Lions president Bob Ackles recognizes players, coaches, teams, builders and members of the media who have influenced the sport of football in British Columbia.
Following a pre-game reception and induction at B.C. Place Stadium, the 2016 inductees will be recognized at halftime of the Lions-Edmonton Eskimos Canadian Football League game.
Williams, now a 95-year-old, wheelchair-bound widower from West Vancouver, played end for the Kits team which laid the foundation for a string of V&D championships in the 1940s.
But by the summer of 1940, when Adolf Hitler was ordering preparations be made for the invasion of Britain, Williams and many of his former teammates were in the service. He joined the Royal Canadian Navy just days before his 19th birthday, took part in landings and invasions of North Africa, Sicily and Normandy and was a lieutenant-commander by the time hostilities in Western Europe ended in 1945.
Last year, Williams was awarded the French Legion of Honour, given to surviving military people from around the world who were responsible for the liberation of France.
“I went over a picture of the guys (from the ’39 team) and I couldn’t find anybody there, that I knew, who was still alive,” Williams said. “They were a good bunch of guys. Most of us went into the service right after that. Some were heroes, some were prisoners of war, some lost legs, some had a good time.
“Kits not only won at football that year. We won the senior boys’ basketball and rugby championships as well.”
After the war, Williams played rugby at the University of B.C., became president of the B.C. Rugby Union in the 1970s and later was inducted into the B.C. Rugby Hall of Fame. Kitsilano and the Meralomas Club are entering the B.C. Football Hall of Fame in the team category.
The class of 2016 is headed by Canadian Football Hall of Fame quarterback Damon Allen, the Lions’ all-time passing yards leader, who was with the team from 1996-2002 and took an 8-10 team to the Grey Cup in 2000. Allen is unable to at- tend the event and is being represented by his 14-year-old grandson, Justice Allen Cherwick.
Joining Allen is another former Lions quarterback, Eric Guthrie, known as the Canadian Rifle. He played 64 games for the team in the 1970s after being named a first-team All-Big Sky Conference selection at Boise State.
Former South Delta high school star Harald Hasselbach, a defen- sive end who won a Grey Cup with the Calgary Stampeders and later a Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos, is another inductee unable to attend. His stand-in is high school coach Ron Ueyama.
Other inductees include Rod Pantages, a Vancouver native who played with Calgary’s first Grey Cup champions (1948), Steve Cotter, a guard with the Lions’ 1964 Grey Cup team, and former Lions/ UBC defensive back Bruce Barnett.
Former Simon Fraser University head coach Chris Beaton, George Oswald, the “godfather” of B.C. high school football, North Shore football impresario Harvey Sedgwick and Matt Phillips, who has devoted decades to growing the game in the province, enter the Hall in the builder category.
Former Vancouver Province football, baseball and basketball reporter Lowell Ullrich is being honoured for his Lions and CFL coverage over 16 seasons. Lions vice-president of business George Chayka is the recipient of the CFL Bob Ackles Award.
I went over a picture of the guys (from the ’39 team) and I couldn’t find anybody there ... who was still alive.