Not many people can turn on the TV today, switching channels between NFL action and the B.C. Lions playoff game, and say they were a part of both.

Mo Elewonibi can. The genial mountain of a man had a 16-year CFL and NFL career as an offensive lineman that included a Super Bowl championship. He was part of the Class of 2009 enshrined Saturday into the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame during an emotional induction ceremony at the sold-out Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence gym on the Camosun College Interurban campus.

"As a kid you go out and play for no other reason than just for fun," said Elewonibi, who came up through the Hornets and Vampires community football systems and was also a soccer goalie at Vic High.

"You never think you're going to play football for a career or be inducted into a Hall of Fame. You just go out for fun and do the next thing in front of you."

Mike Caird, who produced numerous boxing champions in his three decades of coaching, looked at the evening's Hall of Fame display case and saw the gloves lovingly signed to him from his protégé and 2000 Sydney Summer Olympian Donnie Orr Jr.

"I've seen this sport change the whole attitude and outlook of countless young people," said Caird. "My lifetime involvement in boxing has been a very rewarding experience."

Also among the Class of 2009 were rower and Vic High grad Jessica Monroe-Gonin, now a mother of two whose three Olympic medals from the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Summer Games included two golds and a silver; Bill Wakeham, who won more than 50 golf titles in his amateur and pro careers; Herb Bate, whose leadership started a Canadian, Pan Am Games and world championship softball dynasty; Jack Short, the iconic Voice of the Races; and the Victoria Lawn Bowling Club, celebrating its centenary.

Monroe-Gonin joins fellow 1992 Barcelona Olympics double gold-medallist rowers and previously enshrined Kirsten Barnes and Brenda Taylor in the Victoria Sports Hall.

"We were extremely competitive with each other, but that's also what contributed to our tremendous chemistry as a group," said Monroe-Gonin.

Wakeham, the B.C. and Canadian amateur champion who represented Canada at the world and Commonwealth championships and played in PGA Tour events, said the night was truly humbling.

"You never know if you're ever going to make it in [to the Hall of Fame]," he said.

"It's so special to be following some of my sporting heroes such as Doug Peden, Billy Foster, Bob Burrows and Margaret Todd into the Victoria Hall."

Short called nearly 50,000 horse races in 43 years beginning in 1934 at the old Willows track in Oak Bay, including the famous first-ever photo-finish three-way first-place tie in 1940 at Willows that is still a fabled part of racing lore.

The plaques individually commemorating the Class of 2009 will be added alongside those of past inductees, now numbering 157, on the Hall of Fame wall inside Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

This year's honorary inductees were Cathy Travis, the driving force behind the founding of the Victoria Sports Hall, and former Hall president Michael O'Connor.

cdheensaw@tc.canwest.com퟿