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Guelph girls softball coaching legend Vallance heads to the Hall

Led midget squad to seven medal finishes at national tournaments, with two championship wins, two second and three third place finishes

Guelph girls softball coaching legend Vallance heads to the Hall

Led midget squad to seven medal finishes at national tournaments, with two championship wins, two second- and three third-place finishes

 

Back a little more than 30 years ago when he was still playing for the Guelph Royals, Dave Vallance thought he’d give his father Chuck Vallance a hand with the midget girls’ softball team in Guelph that Chuck was coaching.

This month Dave Vallance will be inducted into the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame for all the success his teams had over the years.

“I had three younger sisters and I’d come out and throw some (batting practice) or something to give him a hand,” Dave said. “As I started winding down (playing with the Royals), I was converting a little bit more to softball and the teams my dad had built. You know, he won a national (championship) in 1987 where you know, I was a very fringe part of that team. I think I'm in the picture, but it was him and another guy to coach.”

As a coach in the Guelph Girls’ Minor Softball Association (now the Guelph Minor Softball Association) Vallance’s teams won seven medals at the national championships – two gold, two silver and three bronze.

An infielder with the Royals, Dave played eight seasons in the Intercounty Baseball League and was a contender for the league’s rookie-of-the-year honours his first season. Those seasons followed three seasons of junior baseball and, of course, the time he spent in the Guelph Minor Baseball Association after his parents moved the family from Windsor to Guelph.

“When I stopped playing, I jumped right into the coaching the team that my dad was actually leaving as a coach,” Dave said. “So ‘95 was kind of the first year that I got heavily involved and we went to Nationals that year. That kind of sparked a real interest in what we could do and what the whole thing was in Guelph and how the program was kind of being built there. We had very few down years. We went to Nationals almost every year or were in the provincial top three. I was really proud of the fact we took what my dad got started and we built Guelph into kind of a national power in fastball for about 15 years there.”

Overall, Dave played in 227 games with the Royals including times when he was called up from Guelph’s junior squad. He had a .288 batting average with two homers, 99 runs batted in and 15 stolen bases. He retired after the 1993 season when the Royals won their first IBL title in 23 years.

“The last game I played in, myself and Dave Bennett who I played all the way up (through the GMBA system), was the game we beat Toronto to win the championship in 93. We both retired the same day, basically, so it was kind of cool.”

Then it was on to softball, a sport he never ever played.

“Not an inning,” he said. “That's the funny part of it. Once I started coaching and the games were an hour and a half and they were quick, quick, quick seven-inning games, I used to tell guys that I can't go watch a Royals’ game anymore. If I go, I’ve got to go in the fifth inning because my attention span is a little bit different. (Softball) is faster.

“Now, it's funny. These new rules for baseball, they're raving about two-and-a-half hour games all of a sudden whereas, you know, (softball games) are an hour and 20 (minutes), an hour and 30. Not as much pitching dominated as you think because they’ve moved the pitching distance back a little bit and the hitters are getting so big and that's the other thing I would say is a difference. Now, these kids are doing this full time. They've got hitting coaches are pitching coaches and there's a lot of these Peak Performance-like places popping up all over the place where you can go specializing your sport a little bit more.”

And then the success continued with the midget girls’ softball squad and their success bred more success. And that success helped in the recruiting process.

“You know what? It wasn’t as tough as you’d think,” Dave said of keeping the Guelph Gators in the top echelon of midget girls’ softball in the province. “Once we got it going there, the ‘95 to ‘98 group went to Nationals three times, won it once and finished second another time. After that, we started having a lot more inquiries from girls from out of town.”

Guelph also hosted the Nationals at Exhibition Park twice (2003 and 2006) and the people in the city came out to support both tournaments big time.

“That (2003 tournament) was a fantastic event and that I think springboarded the whole city in softball a little bit for the amount of people that came out to watch that whether it be with their kids that were playing or the kids that would be playing eventually,” Dave said. “People over the years tell me that was their first experience with competitive fastball. We didn't win it that year, but it was a great tournament regardless of how we did.”

Playing in a national tournament in your home park created a lot of pressure on the Gators’ coaching staff and their players.

“We did find that,” Dave said. “I remember (current Canadian national women’s softball coach Kaleigh Rafter) telling me during that first game. She said ‘Literally my hands were shaking at home played because I've never played in front of a crowd that big.’ Obviously she went on to bigger and better things, but for a 17-year-old softball player to get to play in front of 1,000 people at home, it was a ton of pressure. Whether it just be family and friends that are there, it was just the enormity of the event.”

Rafter was one of several Vallance-coached players who went on to play NCAA softball and with the national team, something he rightfully takes great pride in.

“Yeah absolutely -- and I still go watch,” he said. “I have been to Florida four or five times to watch girls down there in a tournament where two or three of them might be playing. And you know, some of them are coaching in the States now, too. Kaleigh obviously is in the national team program, but she was coaching long before that down there. But there are other girls like Nicole Abel. Now she's the head coach at Wayne State so even more flattering than seeing them get to play their college ball is to see that there's a little bit of a coaching tree there, too.”

Vallance, former Guelph Storm general manager Mike Kelly, Evan Brill who was a multi-sport athlete and team owner and president of the Guelph Biltmores when they won the national junior A championship in 1950, long-distance runner Elizabeth Waywell and Olympic swimmer and long-time aquatics coach Kevin Auger are the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2023 that is to be inducted into the Hall at the annual Kiwanis Sports Celebrity Dinner May 17.