Former PGA golfer Bryan DeCorso, internationally-acclaimed track and field coach Dave Scott-Thomas, football star Rob Pavan, veteran athlete Charles Robert Crowe and the 2003 Guelph Royals midget baseball team are this year’s inductees into the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame.
The induction ceremony will take place during the annual Kiwanis Sports Celebrity Dinner on May 16 at the Italian Canadian Club.
DeCorso, being inducted in the athlete category, began playing golf with his father at the family-owned Victoria Park East golf club.
In 1989, he won the Ontario Junior Championship and finished second at the Canadian Junior Championship. DeCorso attended NCAA school Kent State University before turning professional in 1995.
DeCorso played professionally for 18 years on various tours, including several appearances on the PGA tour.
Veteran athlete Crowe was a noted marksman for many years, representing Canada at the 1908 London Summer Olympics as part of the first recognized Team Canada. There, along with the Canadian military rifle team, he brought home the bronze medal as well as shooting the nation’s second-highest individual score.
In 1893 he helped the Canadian shooting team capture the premier shooting trophy of the British Empire, the Rajah of Kolapore’s Challenge Cup.
Over the next 30 years Crowe would return to compete in the Kolapore 10 times, winning the Challenge Cup on two further occasions, leading the team in their 1926 victory.
When not competing with his marksmanship, he would spend the summers golfing and the winters, curling. In 1918, he was vice-skip of a team from the Guelph Royal City Curling Club that won the Ontario Tankard.
Veteran athlete Pavan began playing football in the Guelph Minor Football program, helped lead the Bishop Macdonell Celtics to three high school crowns, and was an all-star linebacker at the University of Guelph, helping them to their last Vanier Cup title in 1984.
He was drafted by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1987 and played two seasons in the Canadian Football League, with Winnipeg and Ottawa, before retiring due to injury in 1989.
He returned to University of Guelph as a coach for six seasons and also helped coach the Centennial high school team.
Pavan was also the driving force behind the 2006, 2007 and 2008 Guelph District 10 High School Football festival that helped raise $45,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada.
Dave Scott-Thomas, who enters the Hall of Fame as a builder, has built one of the premier collegiate programs and the top overall endurance groups in Canada at the University of Guelph and Speed River Track and Field Club.
He and his teams have set numerous Ontario University Athletics records, including 50 national championships at the university and club level.
Scott-Thomas is a 30-time Canadian university coach of the year in track and field and cross-country.
Scott-Thomas has also served as a senior national team coach, representing Canada more than 30 times at international events including the Olympic Games, World Championships, Commonwealth Games and PanAm Games.
He has coached more than 50 national medalists and champions, more than 100 national team members and eight athletes who have represented Canada at the Olympic Games.
In addition to his coaching, Scott-Thomas has been a driving force in raising the profile of track and field in Guelph. He also spearheaded the Guelph Track Project, which raised more than $1 million in just over one week to redevelop the track and field facilities at the University of Guelph Alumni Stadium.
The 2003 Guelph Royals Midget AAA baseball team, comprised solely of Guelph players, went undefeated at the Ontario championships to win the provincial title.
The Royals beat the two-time defending champions, the London Badgers, 6-5 in an exciting come-from-behind win in the final game.
It is still the only Guelph team to have ever won a major midget AAA provincial championship in more than 60 years.
The Royals also came within one game of advancing to the Canadian National Championships, losing a close final to the London Badgers in the Ontario Elimination tournament.
Guelph finished their season with a remarkable .722 winning percentage overall.
Tickets, available March 5, are $80 per adult and $35 for students 17 years of age and younger.
For more information or to purchase tickets, call 519-822-1260 ext. 2033 or email [email protected].
