{"id":25220,"date":"2019-11-14T22:41:15","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T03:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25220"},"modified":"2019-11-22T20:20:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-23T01:20:21","slug":"sports-hall-of-fame-welcomes-class-of-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/sports-hall-of-fame-welcomes-class-of-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports Hall of Fame welcomes Class of 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s official: five more Aurora sporting\nlegends have donned the green jacket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reg Chappell, Jim Clark, Travis\nRomagnoli, and the father-son duo of Dave and Ryan Gardner were the latest\ninductees into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame, honoured at the annual induction\ndinner on November 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Andrew\u2019s College was the host venue\nfor the fifth year in a row, where close to 300 guests packed into Cole Hall to\nsee the class don the traditional green sweater now worn by a total of 34\nhonoured members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis celebration highlights the\nachievements and hard work of each inductee, and their contributions to sport\nin our community,\u201d said Mayor Tom Mrakas. \u201cYour strong focus, perseverance, and\ndiligence are great qualities for everyone to adopt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Chappell was the first to take to\nthe stage, a household name among the local swimming community and a founding\nmember of the Aurora Ducks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPassion and people were a major part of\nmy success,\u201d said Mr. Chappell, who recounted a story of one of his earliest\nmemories at the beach at three-years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a sign, out in the deep of\nthe water, I started walking towards it, and my dad had to come grab me to keep\nme from drowning. He then had to tie me to the picnic table to keep me from\ndoing it again\u2026I wanted in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recalled many of the memories he had\nfrom his 56 years in coaching swimming, one that he only retired from last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast summer, at age 71, I stepped down\nfrom president and high-performance coach at Duck Swimming,\u201d said Mr. Chappell,\nexpressing his gratitude to those who contributed to the longevity of his\ncareer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA high-performance coach needs to\ncontinue to look at the base Aurora athletes are coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Clark was the next to hear his name\ncalled, an apt choice this year after his work with the CP Canadian Women\u2019s\nOpen at Magna Golf Club earlier this summer. His resume includes 35 Canadian\nMen\u2019s Opens as a volunteer, where he has come to get to know the night\u2019s emcee Rod\nBlack of TSN, prompting Black to add \u201cEverybody loves Jim.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing an Auroran, Magna has a very high\npresence in this community,\u201d said Mr. Clark. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like St. Andrew\u2019s\u2026you\njust kind of drive by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was proud I got the chance to chair\nthe CP Women\u2019s Open there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Clark went on to address all of the\nmany people involved in Golf Canada that were there in support, including those\nfrom his times volunteering at Glen Abbey when he was just a boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding to the lustre was the over $6,000\nraised from the live auction, always a hit with the induction dinner crowd.\nItems included a signed stick and jersey from recent Stanley Cup champion and\nAurora resident Robert Thomas, as well as a Toronto Maple Leafs game day\npackage, and a Muskoka golf package with Black, who flung joke after joke to\nthe crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Always one for self-deprecating humour\nwhen hosting the event, Black had to make a poke at the absence of fellow TSN\npersonality James Duthie, who has played MC for the induction in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pleasure to be here,\u201d said Black\nin his opening monologue. \u201cObviously James Duthie is busy tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a more serious note, Black went on to\nadd the significance of the night to the local sports community, something he\nhas come to understand over the past few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know what it means to the community,\u201d\nsaid Black. \u201cI have a son that went here, to St. Andrew\u2019s College, my daughter\ngoes to St. Max, I\u2019m involved in the community here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally adding, as the joker he has come\nto be known as at the dinner:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI go to the S.A.R.C., the A.C.C\u2026how\ncome everything has to have an acronym in this town? Pain in the A.S.S.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s inductees will see their\nphotos and bios brandished on the walls of the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame at\nthe SARC, where the public is also free to see their collections of equipment,\nmedals, and other memorabilia for a full calendar year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pair of St. Max Mustangs were also\nwelcomed into the hall in the form of the Future Hall of Famers program,\nwelcoming Lara Jorgensen and Brent Davison into the fold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jorgensen, the Junior Athlete of the\nYear at St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School helped the girls hockey squad\nto back-to-back medal finishes in the last two seasons, while representing both\nOntario and Canada in rugby, all by the age of sixteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davison, who competes for the Mustangs\nin both rugby and swimming, earned triple gold swimming in his age level at the\n2019 Ontario Youth Provincial Championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next week, The Auroran will focus on the inductions of the Gardners, as well as Mr. Romagnoli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jake Courtepatte <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s official: five more Aurora sporting legends have donned the green jacket. Reg Chappell, Jim Clark, Travis Romagnoli, and the father-son duo of Dave and Ryan Gardner were the latest inductees into the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame, honoured at the annual induction dinner on November 7. St. Andrew\u2019s College was the host venue for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/2019-11-14-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6yM","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 08:32:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}