Without a doubt, bar none.........the Canadian Women's Water Polo team playing for the gold medal at the World Aquatics Championships in Rome.
These women deserve our greatest applause for their accomplishment. Whether they win the gold or silver is less important.
We salute you!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Good Enough for the Olympics, but .........
The piece below is an opinion column written by a former Sports Ed, and now a higher-up at The Whig. It cannot go unchallenged.
The most unfortunate part of Mr Scilley's column is that he casts aspersions on all members of the hall, in his effort to elevate Mr Leduc. Most people consider it unworthy of someone to "put down" others in order to gain ground.
Just take a look at Canadian politics. When one of our politicans puts down a politician in another party, the comments posted on the website where this happens, are scathing. We've had lots of recent examples of this.
Secondly, Mr Scilley could have written to the board or the President or an individual board member, to express his view. As far as I know, he did not do that, and I am a member of the Board. Had he done that, we could have discussed this at a board meeting.
Mark Leduc was a superior boxer. To win an Olympic medal is an extraordinary achievement, and in my view, Olympic medallists deserve to be in their local sports hall of fame.
It is indeed unfortunate that Mr Scilley appears to have written in anger. Perhaps another route would have been more appropriate, and more productive. I am reminded of an article in The Globe within the last few days, in which a writer offers ways to get a 'big corporation' to address an issue that is small to it, but large to the complainent. He says in no uncertain terms that an issue is more likely to be resolved in the person's favour if they are polite.
--------------------
Good enough for the Olympics, but not for Kingston's sports hall of fame
By CLAUDE SCILLEY
Kingston Whig Standard, July 25, 2009
It is to the utter shame of the Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame that Mark Leduc died this week before being inducted into its dubiously hallowed midst.
Leduc, then a member of the Kingston Youth Boxing Club, won a silver medal for Canada at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. He died this week in Toronto at the age of 47.
For the better part of the last 10 years, Leduc's nomination has been in the hands of the selection committee. It is perennially rejected -- for no good reason whatsoever.
Leduc learned the craft from Kingston coaches Ken and Colin MacPhail. He won 130 of 153 amateur fights. He was Canada's amateur welterweight champion four times and was a member of numerous national teams that competed abroad. He was Kingston's amateur athlete of the year in 1992 and after he turned professional, he rose to become Canada's super lightweight champion.
Re-read those credentials. By the competitive standard set by Mark Leduc, half of the honoured members of the hall aren't fit to carry his gloves. Of the 124 members of the hall, there are only three Olympic athletes. Only one of them ever won a medal.
After Leduc retired as a fighter, he publicly acknowledged that he was gay. For the rest of his life, he volunteered at a Toronto AIDS centre, but that can't possibly have kept him out of the local sports hall of fame. There is no box on the nomination form for sexual orientation.
Leduc came to Kingston because he was convicted of a crime and he was sent here to serve his sentence, but that can't possibly be keeping him out of the hall, because a CPIC check isn't required of its nominees either. Besides, there's at least one convicted criminal in the hall already, and one man who was once suspended by his sport's governing body for falsifying game reports.
Leduc was a young man who did wrong, was punished and turned his life around, largely through sport. He visited schools because he knew young people needed positive, encouraging role models -- and perhaps because he never had them himself.
That's the way the world is supposed to work, isn't it? Why would you not want to reward his example? Why would you not want his story to be part of your hall's legacy?
That he was not born here is irrelevant; a high percentage of inductees come from elsewhere and made their mark after arriving, as he did. Leduc proclaimed Kingston to be his "hometown" many times; he was always Mark Leduc from Kingston, wherever he competed. He insisted his first pro fight had to be here.
In a hall rife with people whose biggest claim to fame is sandlot ball and organizing house leagues, it is beyond belief that an Olympic silver medalist could be snubbed, year after year.
Clearly there was never a good reason for Mark Leduc to be excluded from the hall. Now it's too late. A posthumous induction, after years of looking the other way, will be a hollow gesture indeed.
No one selected from this day forward should accept induction into the local hall until Mark Leduc finds his rightful place. There simply is no one more worthy.
It would be appropriate for the Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame to suspend its selection committee for a year and, in an Olympic year, make Leduc its sole inductee in 2010.
It's the only way to make it right.
----------30--------------
Claude Scilley is the former sports editor of the Whig-Standard. He nominated Mark Leduc for the Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
The most unfortunate part of Mr Scilley's column is that he casts aspersions on all members of the hall, in his effort to elevate Mr Leduc. Most people consider it unworthy of someone to "put down" others in order to gain ground.
Just take a look at Canadian politics. When one of our politicans puts down a politician in another party, the comments posted on the website where this happens, are scathing. We've had lots of recent examples of this.
Secondly, Mr Scilley could have written to the board or the President or an individual board member, to express his view. As far as I know, he did not do that, and I am a member of the Board. Had he done that, we could have discussed this at a board meeting.
Mark Leduc was a superior boxer. To win an Olympic medal is an extraordinary achievement, and in my view, Olympic medallists deserve to be in their local sports hall of fame.
It is indeed unfortunate that Mr Scilley appears to have written in anger. Perhaps another route would have been more appropriate, and more productive. I am reminded of an article in The Globe within the last few days, in which a writer offers ways to get a 'big corporation' to address an issue that is small to it, but large to the complainent. He says in no uncertain terms that an issue is more likely to be resolved in the person's favour if they are polite.
--------------------
Good enough for the Olympics, but not for Kingston's sports hall of fame
By CLAUDE SCILLEY
Kingston Whig Standard, July 25, 2009
It is to the utter shame of the Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame that Mark Leduc died this week before being inducted into its dubiously hallowed midst.
Leduc, then a member of the Kingston Youth Boxing Club, won a silver medal for Canada at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. He died this week in Toronto at the age of 47.
For the better part of the last 10 years, Leduc's nomination has been in the hands of the selection committee. It is perennially rejected -- for no good reason whatsoever.
Leduc learned the craft from Kingston coaches Ken and Colin MacPhail. He won 130 of 153 amateur fights. He was Canada's amateur welterweight champion four times and was a member of numerous national teams that competed abroad. He was Kingston's amateur athlete of the year in 1992 and after he turned professional, he rose to become Canada's super lightweight champion.
Re-read those credentials. By the competitive standard set by Mark Leduc, half of the honoured members of the hall aren't fit to carry his gloves. Of the 124 members of the hall, there are only three Olympic athletes. Only one of them ever won a medal.
After Leduc retired as a fighter, he publicly acknowledged that he was gay. For the rest of his life, he volunteered at a Toronto AIDS centre, but that can't possibly have kept him out of the local sports hall of fame. There is no box on the nomination form for sexual orientation.
Leduc came to Kingston because he was convicted of a crime and he was sent here to serve his sentence, but that can't possibly be keeping him out of the hall, because a CPIC check isn't required of its nominees either. Besides, there's at least one convicted criminal in the hall already, and one man who was once suspended by his sport's governing body for falsifying game reports.
Leduc was a young man who did wrong, was punished and turned his life around, largely through sport. He visited schools because he knew young people needed positive, encouraging role models -- and perhaps because he never had them himself.
That's the way the world is supposed to work, isn't it? Why would you not want to reward his example? Why would you not want his story to be part of your hall's legacy?
That he was not born here is irrelevant; a high percentage of inductees come from elsewhere and made their mark after arriving, as he did. Leduc proclaimed Kingston to be his "hometown" many times; he was always Mark Leduc from Kingston, wherever he competed. He insisted his first pro fight had to be here.
In a hall rife with people whose biggest claim to fame is sandlot ball and organizing house leagues, it is beyond belief that an Olympic silver medalist could be snubbed, year after year.
Clearly there was never a good reason for Mark Leduc to be excluded from the hall. Now it's too late. A posthumous induction, after years of looking the other way, will be a hollow gesture indeed.
No one selected from this day forward should accept induction into the local hall until Mark Leduc finds his rightful place. There simply is no one more worthy.
It would be appropriate for the Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame to suspend its selection committee for a year and, in an Olympic year, make Leduc its sole inductee in 2010.
It's the only way to make it right.
----------30--------------
Claude Scilley is the former sports editor of the Whig-Standard. He nominated Mark Leduc for the Kingston and District Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.
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