Jim Rutledge’s career took him as a pro golfer to courses around the world, Dave Kirzinger’s to CFL stadiums across the country, Gary Reed’s to the Olympic track and Patricia Obee’s and Lindsay Jennerich’s to the Olympic podium for rowing.
Their final sports journey will take them into the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame in the Class of 2022, which is being unveiled today.
Also being inducted is Gerry Poulton, renowned as both an athlete and official in his 50-year squash career, speed-skating champion and builder Brenda Shields Hennigar, multi-sports builder Richard Way and triathlon coach Lance Watson, who has guided his athletes to gold medals in the Olympics, Commonwealth and Pan Am Games and Ironman world championships in a 35-year career.
Obee and Jennerich, known for their unswerving and steely focus, won the silver medal in the women’s lightweight double at the 2016 Rio Olympics and also two world championship silver medals.
“It definitely always stays with you and informs who you are,” said Obee, of her rowing career.
“It will always be a part of me,” added Obee, who now works in the field of mental health for the provincial government.
“I’m very proud to be from Victoria and to be entering my hometown sports hall of fame.”
Kirzinger won back-to-back B.C. high school basketball championships with the Oak Bay Bays in 1973 and 1974, but it was his football background in Island bantam and juvenile leagues that prepared him to become the first overall selection in the 1979 CFL draft, leading to an outstanding career with the Calgary Stampeders in which he was three-time Western Conference all-star and three-time Schenley Awards nominee as best CFL offensive lineman.
“This is a true honour,” said Kirzinger. “It was all about the people I played with in both Victoria and Calgary,” said the 65-year-old, who works in real estate investment.
“The people at work joke that, even more than the CFL, I am most excited when I talk about our team’s high school basketball accomplishments at Oak Bay.”
Canadian record-holder Reed, with such graceful stride, won the 800-metre silver medal at the 2007 IAAF world track and field championships before placing fourth in the 2008 Beijing Olympics in an event considered the deepest and hardest to win in any Games discipline in any sport.
“This is a huge, meaningful honour because my running years in Victoria from 2002 to 2010 were vital in my life,” said Reed, co-owner of a construction and development firm in Kamloops.
“My Victoria days represented the apex of my career and I loved every minute of it and talk about it always. No other community in Canada, that I am aware of, gets behind its athletes like that. Sport is a part of the fabric of the community in Victoria and that really resonates with the athletes. I know it did with me.”
Rutledge won the Canadian juvenile and junior golf championships before turning pro at 19 and playing more than 20 years on the Canadian and Asian tours, winning the Indian Open at Delhi in 1995 and New Zealand PGA Championship in 2006. Rutledge played four years on the European Tour before joining the PGA Tour for 2007 and later the PGA Champions Tour. Rutledge wore the Maple Leaf at the World Cup and Dunhill Cup. He recalled as kids sneaking onto, then being scurried off, Cedar Hill: “Later, we had such a great crew of juniors competing there, and it all worked out.”
Shields Hennigar developed a culture for a winter sport in a region with Canada’s mildest climate, winning a total of 11 Canadian women’s singles speed-skating championships, two in short track and nine in long track, three national all-round championships and finished her career with 33 Canadian and North American championship medals and several Canadian and North American records. Shields Hennigar also became a coach and builder in her sport following her competitive career.
The 2022 induction ceremony will take place Oct. 29 at the Delta Ocean Pointe. Tickets will be available beginning Saturday at gvshof.ca.
The Victoria Sports Hall of Fame was inaugurated in 1991. Plaques honouring the Class of 2022 will join those of the 251 previous inductees on the concourse walls of Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
