COMMUNITY BOOSTER

Jerry Slavik dies at 85

Jerry Slavik, a longtime Windsor athlete, track and field official, business owner, philanthropist and music buff has died.

He was 85.

Slavik died Tuesday morning at the Metropolitan Campus of Windsor Regional Hospital after a medical procedure led to fatal complications. Slavik had been in failing health in recent years. He was a co-founder of the Knobby’s Kids hockey charity, ran the Boston Marathon and six Detroit Free Press marathons, cofounded WRACE (Walkers and Runners Around the County of Essex), served as an official at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and as race director for the Terry Fox Run. “He hired me 33 years ago at Windsor Factory (Supply) and he was the greatest man ever,” said Marty Kerester, who worked for Slavik and collaborated on his charitable works. “He didn’t have a bad word to say about anybody, he didn’t complain, he was great.” Slavik was born in Blenheim on June 1, 1932, to parents who came to Canada from Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s.

His family moved to Windsor six months after his birth.

In his youth Slavik played highlevel hockey, baseball and football. He co-founded Windsor Factory Supply in 1955.

He took up running after a car accident in 1967 left him with a broken leg and his doctor suggested running to speed his healing. Slavik was inducted into the Windsor-Essex County Sports Hall of Fame in 1998 and at that time was still organizing and officiating an average of 100 track and field events annually. “There is no other person that we could think of that is such a supporter of athletes, track and field athletes, or Knobby’s Kids, the little ones, anyone in sports,” said Helen Vasilic, who worked with Slavik for close to 40 years in the local track and field scene. “We just can’t say enough good things about him ... he spent countless hours at the finish line at numerous meets over the years.” Slavik’s daughter Mary said she and her siblings were always put to work for their father’s meets. “He was really into his volunteer track and field when I was young,” Mary said.

“He had track meets on Belle Isle. If you did go along, he made you participate.” She recalls Friday nights at home before Saturday morning meets pinning number cards on T-shirts. Slavik was also remembered for being a practical joker at work. “What he used to do to the new employees at Windsor Factory — He’d get behind them and put firecrackers in a pail and scare the (expletive) out of them. He was crazy like that. He was nuts.” Water pistols were another of Slavik’s favourites.

“He used to get out the squirt guns and start squirting everybody,” said Kerester. “You’d be walking through the office and get shot with a squirt gun. That’s how goofy of a guy he was.

“You weren’t an employee, you weren’t a number, you were a friend when he hired you.” Mary Slavik said that in addition to everything else going on in her father’s life, he was also a big fan of traditional Czech music — his father Albert having been a professional musician. “That Czech polka music was what my Dad grew up with,” said Mary. “So that was the music that we grew up with. Whereas people always think about Jerry being a sports guy ... at home it was very much music. He has one of the largest record collections of Czech music. That’s kind of one of his legacies that we have to deal with.” Slavik lent records to a radio station in Cleveland and supported a polka radio show financially for years.

Slavic also treated his staff at Windsor Factory Supply to annual parties on the Victoria Day long weekend.

“We would have popcorn and cotton candy and bouncing castles and barbecues and then the highlight was huge fireworks,” Mary said.

“At one point they had two people who had their pyrotechnics licence.”

At Slavik’s request there will be no funeral, but Mary said she is planning a celebration of life at a future date to honour her father, something she told him she would do, and he didn’t say no.

“I said the people in Windsor are going to want to say goodbye,” Mary said. “They’re going to want to express their appreciation. So I said if you don’t want anything put on I’m going to rent the field at the University of Windsor and we’re going to have a big party like we used to have at the shop.”