Editor’s note: as Bowen’s soccer league is called Bowen Island Football Club, it behooves us to clarify that in this story we’re talking about Canadian football, played with the proverbial pigskin.
When Jim Mullin was a boy, the local football program didn’t have space for equipment, so they kept it in Mullin’s family’s White Rock car port.
“When you’re 12, 13, 14 years old, it’s the greatest thing in the world, [to] have all this football equipment in your car port” said Mullin. “Our family really came together around those Saturdays and Sundays where we had football.
“That’s one of the reasons why it was so special to me.”
Decades later, a couple of weeks ago to be more specific, the sports journalist, media personality, events manager and islander of nearly three years would be elected president of the governing body for Canadian amateur football: Football Canada.
Mullin has been around high-level sports for much of his adult life. He’s been a newspaper journalist, a play-by-play announcer, a radio sports director, coordinator of Olympic media coverage, and for the past nine years, the producer, writer and host of Canada’s only amateur football TV show (formerly known as Krown Countdown U but recently renamed Krown Gridiron Nation upon a move to TSN).
Taking on his new Football Canada role, Mullin says that his mandate is to reach out to everyone involved in football in Canada, from the schools to the elite teams. He acknowledges the more controversial aspects of the game, notably repeated head trauma, but says that the organization is working to address this with safety initiatives and promotion of flag football among younger players.
Mullin says he sees the good in football.
“I think there are benefits right across the board for a game like football, that accommodates every different type of personality and every body type,” he said. “In the age that we’re in right now, where we’re splintered and isolated by technology, the ability to connect with somebody beside you and connect with that teamwork, it is something that I think is important, not just for the individual, but all of society.”
