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To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, we are counting down to Canada Day with profiles of 150 noteworthy British Columbians.
You can’t properly apply the timeworn cliché “They don’t make guys like that anymore” to legendary B.C. Lions kicker Lui Passaglia.
First, no one kicked for as long as he did, as well as he did.
Second, this is a guy who never had to go far to find work as either an amateur or a professional athlete.
No, his career followed a path that has hardly ever been seen.
Born and raised in east Vancouver, Passaglia played high school football at Notre Dame (although rumour has it he first played houseleague ball at crosstown rival Vancouver College), then went to SFU, where he morphed into a wide receiver while learning the punting and kicking trade that would carry him through a 25-year CFL career with the B.C. Lions.
He was drafted in 1976 by his hometown team, which played blocks from his childhood Triumph Street home at Empire Stadium.
The man who got fans roaring “Luooooooo” for his kicking prowess (long before that guy across town named Luongo was drawing the same cheer for his saves) actually launched his long scoring career with a touchdown in his firstever professional game in July 1976 against Saskatchewan.
Upon his retirement after the 2000 season, Passaglia’s career was the longest in the history of Canadian football, and remains so to this day. (In 1998, he passed Ottawa’s Eddie Emerson, who played for 22 seasons scattered between 1911 and 1937.)
The kick that won the 1994 Grey Cup was probably Passaglia’s finest moment.
“When I crossed the line, I went out with the full thought of making it,” Passaglia told The Province’s Ed Willes about the kick that booted the home team ahead of the Baltimore Stallions at B.C. Place Stadium on the Grey Cup game’s final play. “There was no stress. I don’t even recall stepping on the field. I just remember the ball being put down.
“Sometimes it happens so quickly, but this wasn’t slow motion. That part was after I kicked it.”
He scored 3,991 points in his career, including 1,045 converts and 875 field goals — and that one touchdown, a 10-yard reception, in his rookie season. He has the second-most punting yards in history and still has the record for most field goals in a career (Paul McCallum, a Lions successor, is second, but 153 kicks behind.)
He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2004.
After his career, he worked for the Lions for several years before going into a construction business with his brother Walter in 2007.
In 2014, he went public about his battle with colon cancer, which went into remission in 2015.
He and his wife Loa raised a family in Port Coquitlam — daughters Leah and Lauren, plus twin sons Christopher and Colby, who also played football.
Before the 2014 Grey Cup, Passaglia told Sun reporter Mike Beamish about his parents Loris and Natalina, who immigrated from Italy: “(They) taught us to appreciate being in this country and having the opportunities that we do. I think I’ve learned to appreciate what I have even more.”