Tracie Sibbald (nee McAra) was the first player Kathy Shields recruited upon becoming head coach of the University of Victoria women's basketball team in 1978.
The only trouble was the five-foot-11 Sibbald played centre at Reynolds Secondary and Shields needed a point guard at UVic.
"I looked at her and she looked at me," recalled Shields.
The switch was made.
"I saw so much potential there for Tracie to be something special," said Shields.
She was right.
It led to a backcourt career in which Sibbald won three CIS national titles at UVic, being named CIS MVP in 1982-83 and playing in the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, placing fourth, during a six-year national-team career in Canadian colours that also took her to the FIBA world championships.
Tonight, it leads to the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame with the Class of 2012 in the induction ceremonies taking place at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence.
"Tracie worked so hard on her game," said Shields, herself a previously-inducted member of the Victoria Sports Hall.
With Sibbald at the helm as point guard, UVic's Canada West record over her five seasons was 102-14.
"She was a strong, smart, silent leader and had a brilliant mind for the game," said Shields.
"I was the assistant coach for Canada at the '84 L.A. Olympics and it was such a proud and special moment for me to be there with Tracie."
Also being enshrined into the Victoria Sports Hall tonight are the fabled Gold Dust Twins from the Victoria Shamrocks of the 1950s - Fred (Whitey) Severson and the late Archie Browning - who lit up Senior A lacrosse floors in the 1950s with their dazzling back-and-forth passing-and-scoring skills that flummoxed opposing defenders and left opposing goalies with their heads spinning.
Joining Sibbald, Severson and Browning in the Class of 2012 are auto-racing legend Roy Haslam; Canadian archery champion and later builder Alan Wills; George Jones, the rugby builder and a founding member of the Victoria Commonwealth Games Society and Braefoot Athletic Centre; and Joe Iannarelli, the gregarious founding manager of the Esquimalt Archie Browning Arena.
The team inductee is the Gorge Hotel men's softball team, which starred Joe Bryant, and won a then-record six consecutive B.C. titles from 1954 to 1959. The media inductee is former Victoria radio sports broadcaster John McKeachie, who went on to greater fame in the Vancouver and national media markets.
Plaques honouring the Class of 2012 will join those of the nearly 200 previous inductees inside the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. [email protected]
