Reginald ("Reg") Underwood, member of the Tsawout First Nation, near Victoria, British Columbia, made his name known as an elite athlete competing in softball as an outfielder for the Victoria Bate team from 1974 to 1984. During that time, he helped the team to a string of successes at the senior "A" men's level, winning 10 Provincial Championships, 6 National Championships, and the 1979 Pan Am Games. [1] The team was also named Co-World Champions at the 1976 World Championships in Wellington, New Zealand, where twelve nations competed, but bad weather forced the cancellation of the tournament before it could be completed. The title was shared between the semi-finalists: Canada, New Zealand, and USA. The Victoria Bate team was unique because it was the only club team to ever win the World Championships; all of the others had been All-Star teams. 1976 was the last year in which a club team would be represented at the World championships. [2] In 1990, the team that Reginald played on between the years 1975-1976, was inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame. [2]
Reginald was also recognize for his achievements as individual. He was named an All-Star at the 1976, 1981, and 1982, and 1983 National Championships, while competing for the Victoria Bate team, where he finished with a career batting average over 300. [3] In his spare time, Reginald would also help adolescent players enhance their skills to improve their game. [3] He was named a national Tom Longboat Award recipient in 1976 because of his accomplishments in softball, but also for his achievements in basketball, track and field, bowling, and rugby. [4] Reginald was very talented in his game of softball, as it went beyond a few championships. He led his team to 2 senior B Provincials, 2 Master Provincials and 3 Western Canadian Master Championships. [3] His sister, Vivian Underwood, won the regional Tom Longboat Award in 1964. [5]
He competed in softball long after his days with the Victoria Bate team ended. Softball BC named him Athlete of the Year in 1998 and 2003. [6]
Other forms of recognition include his induction into the Softball BC Hall of Fame in 1993, [7] the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, [8] and the Softball Canada Hall of Fame in 1998, where two other Tom Longboat Award recipients are recognized for their achievements: Darren Zack and Phyllis Bomberry, both inducted in 2009. [9]
The BC Sports Hall of Fame is a museum located in BC Place Stadium, at Gate A, the main entrance to the stadium, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It collects, preserves, studies and interprets materials that relate to British Columbia's sport history, and allows researchers, writers, media members and sport historians to gain access to and appreciate BC's sporting heritage.
Alexander (Ross) Powless was a Mohawk lacrosse player from the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation near Brantford, Ontario. Broadly, Ross was positioned as an ambassador for lacrosse and for native people. Powless is also considered one of the best lacrosse athletes in Canadian history and the father of modern lacrosse. His exceptional play has been credited with reviving interest in box lacrosse in the 1950s. He was the father of lacrosse player Gaylord Powless. He was named an inductee for Canada's Sports Hall of Fame class of 2020/21 as a builder for lacrosse.
Thomas Charles Longboat was an Onondaga distance runner from the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario and, for much of his career, the dominant long-distance runner. He was known as the "bulldog of Britannia" and was a soldier in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the First World War.
J. Wilton Littlechild, known as Willie Littlechild, is a Canadian lawyer and Cree chief who served as Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations and as a member of Parliament. A residential school survivor, he is known for his work nationally and internationally on Indigenous rights. He was born in Hobbema, now named Maskwacis, Alberta.
Alwyn Morris, CM is a retired Canadian sprint kayaker. A member of the Mohawk nation in Kahnawake, he is considered one of the most influential Indigenous athletes of all time. He is the first and only Aboriginal Canadian athlete who won a gold medal at the Summer Olympic Games and one of the only three North American aboriginals to do so, alongside Jim Thorpe and Billy Mills.
The National Ringette League (NRL) is the premier sports league for the sport of ringette in North America and Canada's national league for elite ringette players aged 18+. All of the NRL's elite athletes are women, one of ringette's distinctive features. The NRL is a semi-professional league and operates as a showcase league for the sport. It is the first winter team sports league in North America to have women form its entire elite athlete base rather than male. By 2022, the league completed sixteen seasons of play.
Waneek Horn-Miller is a Mohawk of Kahnawake. She was a member of the Canadian women's water polo team that won a gold medal at the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg. Horn-Miller also became the first Mohawk woman from Canada to ever compete in the Olympic games. She was named an inductee for Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in the athlete category in 2019.
Michael Edgson is a Canadian retired Paralympic swimmer. He is amongst the most successful Paralympians of all time having won 17 gold medals. He attended three Games between 1984 and 1992, winning medals in all but one of the events in which he competed individually. As a visually-impaired athlete Edgson competes in the B3 classification.
Stacie Anaka is a Canadian freestyle wrestler from Coquitlam, British Columbia. She competes in the 67 kg division. Anaka also serves as an assistant coach for women's wrestling at Simon Fraser University. In 2007, she received the Tom Longboat Award for her outstanding contributions to sports by the Aboriginal Sport Circle.
Vic Lindal is one of the founders of competitive volleyball in Canada.
Rick Brant is a Mohawk athlete who primarily competed in track and field. Brant is a Tom Longboat winner, winning the National award in 1987. He is originally from Ontario and a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation He now resides in Cowichan British Columbia. Brant is most recently known for his contribution in being a founding member of the Aboriginal Sports Circle, Executive Director of the Indigenous Sport Physical Activity and Recreation Council (I·SPARC) and CEO of three separate North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) - 1993, 1997 and 2008. Brant served as President of the North American Indigenous Games Council from 2015 to 2018. He continues to serve on the Council's Executive Committee as Past President.
Beverly "Bev" Beaver is a Mohawk Canadian athlete from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada, known for her performance in fastball, hockey, and bowling. Beaver was born to Reg and Norma Henhawk and had four siblings, Sidney Henhawk, Charlene Nuttycombe, Toni Johnson, and Justine Bomberry. Beaver's competed as a professional athlete from 1961 to 1994. She is known to have developed her athletic skills by playing sports with boys throughout her childhood, even becoming a prominent player on a boy's bantam hockey team at age 13. Beaver played exclusively on Native fastball teams; however, she has played on non-Native teams in other sports. Throughout her career she earned awards such as the Regional Tom Longboat Award for Southern Ontario (1967) and the National Tom Longboat Award (1980). Beaver is credited with earning other awards for performance in fastball, hockey, and bowling. Some of her hockey artifacts are in the Hockey Hall of Fame, in its diversity exhibit.
Richard "Bear" Peter is a Canadian First Nations wheelchair basketball player. Peter was born in Duncan, British Columbia, and currently resides in Vancouver. When Richard was four years old, he was injured in a bus accident, leaving him in a wheelchair ever since. He began playing wheelchair basketball at the age of 15 when he was inspired by a team that came to his school and introduced him to wheelchair sports. Since then, Peter has competed in the 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games, winning the gold metal for wheelchair basketball for three of those years.
Darren Zack, also known by his nickname "Z-MAN" is a fastpitch softball player. Zack is an Ojibwa softball player and he has set records at every level, pitching the most wins, strikeouts and consecutive scoreless innings, and capturing three gold medals at the Pan Am Games. Zack conducts pitching clinics throughout North America, encouraging community involvement in the sport.
Phyllis "Yogi" Bomberry was a Canadian softball catcher from Southwestern Ontario. Born in 1943, Bomberry competed nationally winning many Canadian Women's Softball Championships. Bomberry became the first female to win the Tom Longboat Award. She died on January 3, 2019.
Beverly Stranger was a Canadian Indigenous track and field athlete with blindness, from the Timiskaming Band of Notre Dame du Nord, Quebec. She competed at the 1976 Toronto Olympics for the Physically Disabled, and the 1977 Ontario Summer games held in Brantford, Ontario. Stranger was a recipient of the prestigious Tom Longboat Award in 1976, only the second female to have done so and the first disabled athlete.
Janice Forsyth is a Canadian associate professor of Sociology and the director of the Indigenous Studies program at Western University in London, Ontario. A former varsity athlete Forsyth was awarded the Tom Longboat Regional Award for Ontario in 2002.
Herbert Strongeagle is considered "a role model for 'breaking the stereotype, myths and perception of Native people that is constantly reinforced by hockey people and the media" by his community, and in 2006 received the First Nations Lifetime Achievement Award - Saskatchewan. Early in his life he was awarded the Tom Longboat Medal as Best Indian Athlete in Saskatchewan for his contributions to his junior baseball and midget and juvenile hockey teams, along with track and field and basketball, and continued to receive awards from his community for contributions through his lifetime.
The Tom Longboat Awards were established in 1951 to recognize Aboriginal athletes "for their outstanding contributions to sport in Canada" and continues "to honour Indigenous athletes across Canada" annually. As a program of the Aboriginal Sport Circle, the awards provide a forum for acknowledging top male and female athletes both at the regional and national levels.
Carole Polchies was born in Woodstock First Nation, New Brunswick. She is a Canadian first nations woman known for her involvement in sports including softball, canoeing, horseshoes and tennis. Later she became involved in organizing sport competitions including the Indian Summer Games, which were first hosted in 1997.
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