A winning record as teacher and coach
Oblate priest taught at St. Patrick’s H.S.
Father Thomas Cassidy was not a particularly big man, nor was he very terribly athletic. But the former teacher at St. Patrick’s High School was a committed man, and when he was asked to become the school’s wrestling coach, he did so willingly. He knew little about wrestling, but he studied it, took courses and recruited a bunch of students for the school team that amassed a phenomenal winning record. The team had a 94-1-1 record in his time as coach, winning numerous city meets and provincial tournaments and grooming its star wrestler, Claude Pilon, who went on to become a Commonwealth Games gold medallist and pro football player.
The high school on Heron Road was run by the Oblates until 1973, when it was folded under the Ottawa Board of Education. The wrestling team was one of the school’s big success stories.
“The Oblates were really good at picking out people who shall we say, had a knack of getting into trouble,” joked Rick Levesque, a former student, who joined the wrestling team in 1968.
“The wrestling team was a way for everybody just to cool your jets and relax. And if you had extra energy, it was the place to take it out on. Wrestling was pretty popular back then, we used to fill the stands and we had people joining us all the time.”
He said the wrestling team had 14 weight divisions, and dozens of students were part of both the A and B teams.
“He was definitely strict, but gentle at the same time, and he knew what he was talking about. He didn’t beat around the bush; when he was trying to tell you something, you got the message loud and clear fairly quickly. He had a voice that would carry forever and he certainly made his presence known,” Levesque said.
Cassidy died Jan. 7 of bone cancer. He was 75 years old.
Born in Ottawa, Cassidy grew up in the Preston Street area and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1963. He taught English and history and was also a guidance teacher at St. Patrick’s High School. He went on to become a chaplain in the Canadian Forces, a provincial secretary and archivist, secretary and canonical counsel to the Apostolic Nunciature, a sessional professor at St. Paul’s University and a judge at the Canadian Appeal Tribunal.
Cassidy was a flamboyant priest and one of his trademarks was wearing loud-coloured socks, Levesque said.
“It didn’t matter where he went, he always had bright socks on. I remember when I went to his defence about his PhD (in canon law) and noticed that he had a pair of black socks on. I said to him, ‘What’s with the black socks?’ He giggled and pulled down the black socks and had orange socks underneath,” he said.
“He enjoyed making a statement and saying, I’m just not a priest, I’m a person too.”
Ontario Court Justice Peter Wright said Cassidy had the respect of students.
“I heard former prime minister John Turner once refer to the Oblates as employing a muscular form of Christianity. Tom didn’t do that, I never saw him raise a hand to a student, and if he raised his voice, I don’t remember it,” said Wright, a former student at St. Pat’s and a member of the wrestling team.
“He managed to command respect and control his class without having to resort to physical discipline or harsh words. It wasn’t unusual in those days to have corporal punishment,” he said.
Wright said the wrestling practices that Cassidy led were always fun and positive experiences.
“He was never harsh or critical of the students. And he was the same in the classroom, wellspoken and articulate, and kind of bouncy,” Wright said.
Bill Paynter, a former phys-ed teacher at St. Pat’s, remembers meeting Cassidy for the first time in 1963 at the school’s old campus on Echo Drive.
“At that time, St. Pat’s had about 40 per cent of the students living at the school. I was supervising the lunch room and saw two people on the floor wrestling. I said stop. One of them popped up and said, ‘That’s OK, I’m Father Cassidy and I teach here,’ ” said Paynter.
About two years later, Cassidy approached Paynter and asked if he could start a wrestling team. “I said, ‘I agree, and you, Father Cassidy, will be the coach,’ ” Paynter said.
He said he had no doubt about Cassidy’s abilities as a wrestling coach and teacher.
“He was a brilliant man, a bookish man, a librarian for the school and an English teacher. He had the respect of the students, he was concerned about them and he was openly admitted to any family that he wanted to get to know. Kids with pride would introduce their wrestling coach to their parents,” he said.
Cassidy is survived by his brother James, stepsisters Patricia Bisson, Diane Dakers and Colleen McLane, and many cousins, nieces and nephews. A funeral mass was held Jan. 12 at St. Theresa’s Oblate Cemetery in Arnprior.