WHO TO CALL:
Sports Editor
Andrew McCredie

) 985-2131 (147)

BASKETBALL...

} Thomas Aquinas (STA) ;
are the B.C, Catholic 4
i Schools senior boys’ bas- ;

§ ketball champs.

The. Fighting Saints

{ downed Vancouver’s St. ;
Patrick’s 82-67 in the final %&

of the annual eight-team

# tournament, En route to the

Handsworth
grad on route
to play in CFL

HANDSWORTH FOOTBALL
coach Jce Bell vividly remem-
bers Andrew English’s first

“Both SFU and UBC were asking
me to play soccer and football, and
even though I still didn't know the
game of football that well, | figured I
could only learn and get better,” he
says. “I chose UBC because I really
liked the way the coaches came
across, I liked the schooling part of it
and I liked the campus.”

He struggled his first two seasons
(“Reaily tough because you're trying

“4 title, STA demolished St.
Ann’s (92-26), and edged
Holy Cross 61-60 thanks to

# a game-winning basket by
Wilson Williams.

Jon Vardargon (averag-

app-.arance in a football garne.
By Andrew McCredie
Sports Editor

to figure out all this new stuff”), but
found his footing in third year as he
scored four touchdowns and was
selected as a first-team All-Canadian.
He built on that success this past

me
aS

eye

ing 24 points per game) and
Wilson (19 ppg) were
selected to the tournament's
first-team all-stars, while

 STA’s Adam Spence made #
ei

4 the second-team roster.
On. the girt’s side, the

| Fighting Saints + finished B
Py seventh,

GYMNASTICS... Flicka
Gymuastic Club rmiembers
won numerous medals at
{the recent North Shore
‘Invitational gymi meet at
Sutherland . Secondary
. school. © “

? Lise Levellle led: the
: North: Vancouver. club to

‘the National levei team

award with a first-place
result in the. all-arcund
competition, including a
_ second on beam and a third
“on bars...
- Leveille’s © teammate
Destree Day won silver in
the all-around field, picking
up a gold on beam anda sil-
ver in the vault.

In 12-and-over competi-
‘tion, Celine Lebrun’s gold

‘medal all-around: perfor-

mance led Flicka to the 12- &

‘and-over team title. Lebrun
placed second on vault and
third on bars en route to the
all-around title. °

In 11*and-under, Flicka #

finished ~ third, . with
‘Natasha Gowda winning
silver on beam and bronze
‘in the floor exercise for a
‘third-place finish. -

SPECIAL OLYMPICS...

‘North Shore swimmers
. Stroked to strong perfor-

“mances at the eighth annual §

Tom Greenfield Swim Meet
at Vancouver’s Percy
‘Norman pool.

Joe Barker was a dou-

“ble-gold medal winner, as
he claimed firsts inthe 25m
freestyle and the 25m but-
terfly, and a silver medal in &

‘the 100m open.

Also claiming two golds #
was Fred Collins, who won ¢

‘the 25m freestyle and the 3)
100m open in the men's 30- &

and-over competition.
Other North Shore

Special Olympic swimmers . 8
to medal included: Scott. &
Hjorthey (silver in 25m #

backstroke); Patsy
‘Beaumont (bronze in 25m

1b:
‘freestyle) and Sheila Lim #

(bronze in 50m freestyle).
<In. addition,

bined with Wendy Miles to
win silver in the relay
event. .

Pe

Oe

re

Barker, a
Collins and Hjorthoy:com-

“He was out there on the kick-
return team and he didn’t even know

“enough about the game to pick up the

ball when it came to him,” Beli fond-
ly recalls of English's formative years,

Move ahead six years to the pre-
sent and English is hard at work train-
ing for the CFL evaluation camp later
this month. Having led the Canadian

Intercollegiate Athletic Union (CIAL)

in scoring this past season with the

_ UBC Thunderbirds, the two-time All-.

Canadian receiver is expected to go
high in the draft. He’s also up for

University Athlete of the Year honors ~

at next month's Sport 8.C, banquet.
Not bad for a kid from a quiet
North Vancouver cul-de-sac who

- always believed his only chance at pro

sports was on a soccer team.

“My soccer coach was really strict
in that we weren't allowed to play
ether. sports, it was soccer year-
round,” the fourth-year science stu-
dent recalis of life as a North Shore
Select. “But then in Grade Nine I
Started to play football with friends
after school and slowly started to get
into it.”

He decided to try and convince his
soccer-mad father of his intentions to
play that other form of “footbail.”

“When I thought about going out for the team
my dad was like “What are you doing?’,” English
remembers, “Both my dad and my brother told me

T'd be too. small and I'd get killed.”

He admits that their attitude about the game did —
‘scare him a little, but he followed his feelings and
strapped on the equipment. And though he made
just one catch in his first gridiron season, it was a
harbinger of things to come — he scored a touch-

down on the play.

Soccer continued to be a major part of his life

Pro sports: one-stop shop

&T’S CALLED marketing.
Like mining, it’s an extrac-
tion industry. In the context
of sport, its ultimate goal is to
send happy customers home
after a game with their pock-

' ets turned inside out.

Only in recent times has pro sport
become a one-stop shopping centre.
Once upon a hockey game, you
bought a ticket to get into the build-
ing. And once there you laid out a
lite more for a program, a hot dog
and a cup of coffee.

No longer. The stadium doubles
as a shopping mall. It is finely tuned
to what keeps the free enterprise sys-
tem wobbling along: people buying
things they can’t afford, don’t need,
and — if the marketing is slick
enough and the truth be known —
don’t really want.

And there’s nothing like new
product to keep the old cash register
ringing. By all reports, the Canucks’
debut of new sweater colors was a
smashing success. Not only were

they a good luck totem for the team

JUGGLING BOOKS and footballs hasn't been easy for Andrew

English, but his hard work over the past four years has paid off.
The sure-handed UBC receiver has his sights set on the CFL.

marked a turning point.

destiny.

Jim

Kearney

spectator

“—which finally got around to win-

ning a home game — but they were
an instant hit in GM Place’s mer-
chandise outlets.

That, of course, is the main pur-
pose of the exercise. The Canucks
were one of five teams showing off
their new —- and occasionally to be
used — color combinations two
weeks ago. The other 21 will phase
in theirs in weeks to come.

And one wonders what will be
done to the Toronto Maple Leals

during high school (he was part of numerous B.C.
championship teams and a Canadian champion
squad), but the summer between Grades et and 12,

“Just before school started I attended the SFU
football camp, and I guess that’s where I first made
a name for myself,” he says.

University coaches’ appetites were whetted see-
. ing the gifted athlete with the soft hands, and a
strong Grade 12 season sealed his post-secondary

field.

I was.”

season as he led the league in scoring
with nine touchdowns,
He credits much of his on-field
success to his off-field life.
“Learning from people off the

‘field, that’s most important,” English

admits, “I've. never been so close to
my family, my girlfriend Kim and my
friends as I am now. All these people
around me are so great and supportive

“they help me out so that when I go to
“ a game all V'm concentrating on is the

game.
Fan ey, eave can only take you so
far, but throw in some serious weight-

ling and workouts and you have the.

formula for pro-ball potential.

: things
catching the: football and ‘running |
routes,” says’ UBC head coach Casey |

? Smith. “You'll sée him make a cut on™:

a dime and come back and catch a low

ball — you won't even hear him catch 7 _
‘it — and it’s like “Wow'.". : :

Smith believes English’ will go:
high in this year's CFL draft. ve

“We've had a lot of interest from)

CFL teams and irom ™'some NFL’ -
teams as well —- I actually just hung ~
up the phone with a fellow.from the

Jacksonville Jaguars,” Smith, said, on ; "

Monday.

Not bad for a guy who says he’s still more ‘eomns :
. fortable stepping Onto a soccer pitch than a football

“The first few years @ UBC) I took everything
so seriously, schocd, football, everything,

-teflects. “I thought if I didn’t ace all my tests I'd be
a failure. I never really took the time to enjoy Where

With the prospect of playing in ‘the CFL just an
evaiuation camp away, . Andrew English knows

exactly when he i is 4 And where he's going. :::

and Montreal Canadiens jerseys,
which have gone with the same
basic designs since Charlie
Conacher and Howie Morenz were
in their primes.

It’s okay to play around with the
regimentals of newcomers like the
Canucks, the Kings, Sharks aid
Mighty Ducks. But will the design
artists be given a free hand to do as
they wish with the gaime’s most his-
toric work clothes? If there’s a buck
to be made, certainly.

Dedicated fans, who seem willing
to put up with anything unless -— or
until — their credit cards run over
the limit, purchased replicas of the
fourth set just as assiduously as they
did all the others. And that will be
the case here, too. It’s one of the
spinoffs of living in 1OUtopia.

If the entire, ovez-inflated sports
boom doesn’t go bust in the next few

‘years, the arrival of the Millenium

could be the right time for the NHL
to introduce its next special occasion
jerseys.

Here’s a scenario for the market-
ing guys, A special late start on Dec.
31, 1999. Say 11:15 p.m. The inter-

.

ping

yal between the first and second :
periods runs through midnight.

’ While the fans are toasting the New

‘Year with beer (by then $10 a cup),
the teams are changing into their __
21st-century costumes. They re-
appear on the ice at 12:10 a.m., Jan. :
1, 2000.

And what should the Canucks be
wearing? If there's any sense of his-
tory in the merchandising depart-
ment at the Garage, the dominant
color will be maroon, the kissing
cousin of burgundy. Early in the cen-
tury, between 1915 and 1924, a :
maroon-clad Vancouver team named

the Millionaires and later, the

Maroons, went to six Stanley Cup
finals and actually won one of them.
So, would it be anything other than
fitting to use this color in the next
special occasion uniform? I think
not,

By the bye, the team owner,
Frauk Patrick, knew something
about marketing, too. He was the. .
first in Canadian hockey to put num-
bers on the players’ backs and to
print programs so the fans would
know who they were watching, ~. “

” ‘English Le,