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Victoria Sports Hall of Fame 2020 class announced, induction put off a year

An Olympic year amid a pandemic is nothing new for Bob McLaren, part of the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2020 announced on Saturday. The 1967 Pan Am Games double-medallist hurdler competed in the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics.
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Bob McLaren, a 1967 Pan Am Games double-medallist hurdler who also competed in the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics, is part of the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2020.

An Olympic year amid a pandemic is nothing new for Bob McLaren, part of the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2020 announced on Saturday.

The 1967 Pan Am Games double-medallist hurdler competed in the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics. That watershed year is remembered for Trudeaumania, the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the black power salute at the Mexico City Olympics. Almost forgotten now is that the Games were held amid the far-reaching 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic, which killed an estimated one million people, exceeding three times so far the deaths in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latter has caused the cancellation of the induction ceremony for the Class of 2020, scheduled for October at the Westin Bear Mountain. This year’s Class will instead be enshrined in October next year alongside the to-be-named Class of 2021.

Joining McLaren in the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 is 2000 Sydney Olympics boxer and Golden Gloves and national champion Donnie Orr, former Canadian national team softball catcher Joanne Mick and rugby great Bobby Ross, who played in three World Cups and is Canada’s third all-time leading scorer.

Entering in the builders’ category is Pat Hall, legendary in Island and B.C. softball and field hockey. Also being enshrined in the builders’ section is the Vancouver Island Soccer League on its 125th anniversary. Its contribution of three players to the 1986 Canadian World Cup team is part of Island sporting lore and more than 20 VISL alumni have been inducted into the Victoria Sports Hall.

Although the 1968 pandemic did not result in the postponement of his Olympic moment, McLaren said he feels for the more than 60 expected Island athletes whose dreams of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been put on hold until 2021.

Not that his own Olympics weren’t affected by the hand of history as Mexican security forces massacred hundreds of student protesters on the eve of the 1968 Games.

“We had heard about it and my parents were concerned about me going down there,” McLaren said of the tumultuous time.

“Then came Munich [terrorist attack] four years later.”

American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith made a powerful black-fisted protest of their own on the podium at Mexico City.

“There was just so much going on at those Games and in the world,” said McLaren, the former Oak Bay High School and Oregon State Beavers track star in the then Pac-8.

It was a different era in terms of the athletics, as well.

“I was primed, but injured myself in warm-ups just before the Olympic [400-metre hurdles] race. We did not have a good support structure back in those days — nothing like athletes have today — and I was on my own to deal with it,” said McLaren, who struggled across the line in the preliminary rounds after being favoured to reach the Olympic final.

There was no such thing as a full-time amateur athlete back then. McLaren got time off from his job at the Hudson’s Bay department store on Douglas Street to compete in the Olympics.

“I was working full-time during the days and training at nights,” he said.

“When I got back from the Olympics, it was like: ‘OK, now you’re ready to work full-time, right?’ ”

The thought of him continuing on as a full-time athlete was not even an option in that era. Not that he’s complaining. It’s just the way it was.

“I feel truly honoured to be recognized by the Hall of Fame,” said McLaren, 75, who is retired after a career with B.C. Tel.

Even if the induction will be a year late due to the pandemic, president Doug Jennings said the Hall of Fame plans on making the moment just as special in 2021 for the Class of 2020.

The Victoria Sports Hall of Fame was inaugurated in 1991. Plaques honouring the Class of 2020 will join those of the 241 previous inductees on the concourse walls of Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

cdheensaw@timescolonist.com