WEEPERS WAS KING OF SPORTS INFORMATION IN WINDSOR AREA
Bob Weepers would show up at The Windsor Star at the strangest times.
Late at night and with the paper set to go to print, Weepers would pop in to say hello and was usually carrying a stack of results and standings from the various leagues he took care of.
“He was probably the most dedicated sports information officer that anyone could employ,” said Jack Costello, who went to university with Weepers and knew him for half a century.
Weepers, who died at the age of 69 in 2010 from Alzheimer’s disease, is one of eight people being inducted at this year’s 37th Windsor/Essex County Sports Hall of Fame ceremony Oct. 20 at the Caboto Club.
“He deserves it,” said Costello, who was inducted into the hall in 2015.
Costello and Weepers met in university in 1960 and became quick friends. The two would join together later that decade when Al Hoffman hired Weepers to serve as the school’s intercollegiate co-ordinator of athletics where he oversaw all of the school’s sports teams.
“We shared the same office for years,” said Costello, who coached hockey and was later the school’s athletic director. “Al Hoffman was the athletic director and, after he hired me, he was looking for someone to handle information and he knew Bob.
“Al Hoffman said he was probably our best recruiting tool. He was just an outstanding sports information guy and he did all our travel and scheduling. He was a very valuable member of the department.”
Weepers even found a little time for coaching. He served as head coach of the women’s basketball team for six seasons. In that time, the Saints won four provincial medals.
“He was really interested in student-athletes, not just as athletes, but as students, too,” Costello said. “Some he became lifelong friends with and would help them after they graduated. He was very generous with his time.”
And Weepers, who was inducted into the OCAA Sports Hall of Fame in 2009, wasn’t only concerned with the athletes he coached.
“Later, he headed up an academic standards committee to track student-athletes and head off if there was any trouble,” Costello said. “He did a lot for an awful lot of students.”
But statistics always remained a passion for Weepers, who would not only compile numbers for the Saints for years, but several other sports organizations in the area.
“It grew with age,” Costello said. “It accumulated more and he thought it was fun to compare (numbers) to the past. He was always interested in that sort of thing.”
In 2000, Weepers’ book, We are the Champions: Canadian Championship Sports Teams, Windsor, Ontario, 20th Century was published.
“He had great respect for the sports heritage for this area,” Costello said. “The book he published was to the credit of all the outstanding people that had gone before and after him and he really believed in the importance of sports heritage and the role it played in the community.”