It was a special night full of special feelings for those inducted into the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame Wednesday at the 32nd annual Kiwanis Sports Celebrity Dinner at the Italian Canadian Club.
The Hall’s Class of 2018 are veteran athletes Rob Pavan and Charles Robert Crowe, athlete Bryan DeCorso, builder Dave Scott-Thomas and the 2003 provincial champion Guelph Royals midget AAA baseball team.
“I’m a community guy, this is my home and I’ve been here a long time so this to me cements the fact that, hopefully, I’m (considered) part of the community by other people,” track and field and cross country coach Scott-Thomas said. “It’s been really dear to my heart to be in Guelph a couple of decades doing this. I’ve had offers to go other places and just haven’t taken them because this is my home. This feels like a neat part of being home.”
Scott-Thomas came to Guelph in 1997 to be the varsity track and field and cross-country coach with the University of Guelph Gryphons. Since then he’s been named the Canadian university coach of the year 30 times. He also started the Speed River Track and Field Club and it has sent several athletes to compete in the Olympics, including seven to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“I also view this stuff as it’s a group recognition over a long period of time,” he said. “There’s no way one person could do what we’ve achieved so that’s all the staff and all the athletes.”
Guelph native Pavan stayed at home to play football with the Guelph Gryphons and was a member of the 1984 squad that won both the provincial Yates Cup championship and the national Vanier Cup championship.
“It’s an individual award, but I played team sports,” Pavan said. “To me, I started to reflect and it was more about the guys I played with and great players around me and great teams. I’m thankful for my teammates, really.”
A linebacker, Pavan was drafted 33rd overall by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1987 and he played two seasons in the CFL, one with the Bombers and one with the Ottawa Rough Riders, before a back injury derailed his career.
For Pavan, induction day was a time to be thankful for teammates who became his extended family.
“Today, I went golfing with some of my old teammates and guys that I played against,” Pavan said. “That never leaves you. It doesn’t matter how old or how far away from the game you are, you’ve still got a little bit of it in you.”
Golfer DeCorso was born in Guelph and grew up here, leaning to play the sport on his family’s Victoria Park East and Victoria Park West courses.
“It means a lot,” he said of being named to the Hall. “It’s one of those recognitions that you’ve watched on TV. You’ve looked at other people and you never thought it would happen to you. To have the community of Guelph and the city of Guelph and my friends and family recognize what I did and accomplished in the sport of golf is very fulfilling and very rewarding.
“To know that they’re recognizing me for my pursuit of my dreams and everything that I sacrificed and my family and loved ones sacrificed and the opportunity that the city gave me and my family, it’s nice. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.”
DeCorso’s career was launched when he won the Ontario Junior Golf Championship in 1989 and followed that with a runner-up finish in the Canadian amateur championships in 1994. Professionally, he won the Canadian Tour’s Morningstar Classic in 1996, the year he was named the tour’s top rookie, and he also won the Nationwide Tour’s South Georgia Classic in 2008.
Marksman Crowe competed in the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, England, as a member of the first recognized Canadian team and he helped that squad win bronze as his score was the second-best on the team. That was 12 years after he helped the Canadian team win the prestigious Rajah of Kolapore’s Challenge Cup at Bisley, England, where he won both the King’s Prize Final and Grand Aggregate 50 honours seven times.
Using a team of strictly local players, the 2003 midget AAA Royals rallied in the seventh and final inning of the provincial championship game to knock off favoured London to claim the crown.
On top of their Ontario championship, the Royals were Inter-County Baseball Association-Ontario Baseball Association AAA qualifier tournament champions and finalists in both the National Midget Elimination Tournament and St. Catharines Midget Tournament. They also reached the semifinals of the Sarnia Can-Am International Tournament and finished their ICBA regular season in second place.
