The three Island athletes were among the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2017 inductees announced Wednesday in Vancouver.
The other athletes being enshrined in the Class are Mark Recchi from Kamloops, fifth all-time in NHL games played and 13th overall in career NHL points, and former B.C. Lions great Geroy Simon, the all-time CFL receiving leader, who was aptly nicknamed Superman during 12 seasons with the Leos.
The induction ceremonies are April 12 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
“It means a lot. It’s a huge honour, especially when you see your name mentioned with people like that, and those who have been inducted in the Hall previously,” said Victoria’s Green, a 2000 Sydney Olympian, who was the 2001 and 2002 men’s mountain-bike world champion and 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games gold medallist.
Green becomes just the second mountain biker enshrined in the B.C. Sports Hall, joining fellow-Victorian and three-time women’s world champion and Olympic silver-medallist Alison Sydor. He was uncompromising on a bike but his career was derailed by injuries, including a serous crash in Georgia.
“I appreciate the time I had at the top,” said Green, a Mount Douglas Secondary graduate, now a welder in Fernie, who no longer rides even recreationally.
Wyatt combined an approach that was at once elegant and rugged as he came out of Vic High and Oak Bay to score 227 points for Canada, most as a kicker, in 29 Tests. The UVic Vikes grad played in two World Cups, captaining Canada to the quarter-finals in 1991.
“Rugby is a team sport, so it’s awkward when an individual athlete is singled out . . . but this is a tremendous honour nonetheless and so humbling,” said Wyatt, named in 1988 to the all-world team.
“It was a very special time for Canadian rugby with a special group of players,” added Wyatt, 55, now an Island businessman.
Parksville-Qualicum MLA Stilwell, a B.C. cabinet minister, won five wheelchair track gold medals over the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and 2016 Rio Paralympics. She also has a silver medal from London and gold medal in wheelchair basketball from the 2000 Sydney Paralympics.
Being inducted into the team category are the national champion 1969-70 UBC Thunderbirds women’s basketball team, coached by Ken Shields and led by star Kathy Shields, one of five players on that UBC team who would go on to play for Canada’s national team. Both of the Shields would later go on to coaching greatness at the University of Victoria and were individually inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 2013 for their national championship dynasties at UVic.
But that 1969-70 UBC squad retains a special place in their personal pantheons.
“We were always considered female athletes, and then Ken came along and treated us just as athletes,” said Kathy Shields.
“We were the first women’s team even allowed to use War Memorial Gym. There was no CIAU for women back then, and we won the Canadian Senior A championship. We pushed the glass ceiling and glass walls.”
Being inducted into the builders category are former UBC football coach Frank Smith; Parksville-born and Port Alberni-raised women’s wheelchair basketball coach Tim Frick from Pender Island, who guided Canada to four world championship titles and gold medals at the 1992 Barcelona, 1996 Atlanta and 2000 Sydney Paralympics; and the late equestrian builders George and Dianne Tidball.
Former CFLer David Sidoo, the saviour of UBC football, is being enshrined in the WAC Bennett Award category and Chang Keun Choi, among the 12 original masters of taekwondo, in the pioneer’s category.
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