Elliott: George Gross Sports Media Canada awards to Douglas Mitchell, Frank Gunn, Lori Ewing, Masai Ujiri, George Dulmage, Graham Leggat, John Saunders Dave Perkins, Jerry Howarth

By Bob Elliott
Canadian Baseball Network
Dave Perkins was a inquisitor to some pretty fair country pitchers over the years working at the Toronto Star.

Let’s see there was Jimmy Key, Dave Stieb, Jack Morris, Dave Stewart and others. 

When it came time for him to be presented with the Sports Media Canada George Gross Award, career achievement honor, the best arm in the Royal York’s Imperial Room did the intro:

Right-hander Allan Perkins, Ryerson Rams pitcher of the year, his son. 
 
Allan explained how his father promised if he turned 21 without getting a tattoo his father would take him to Vegas and give him a $100 chip for the craps table. Allan said that his father directed the wagering and $100 turned into $400, although the honoree turned said the number was closer to $800. Said Perkins: “if that isn’t quality parenting, I don’t know what is.” A few tables away mom Debbie laughed at the memory.
 
Ah, we’d have to go with Perkins the father on any dispute when it comes to craps. Flashback to 1987 and Major League Baseball was trying to bring back its annual trip to Puerto Rico to honor the legendary Roberto Clemente. Two teams would fly over from Florida during the middle of the training camp, play two games and fly back. It was the Jays and Clemente’s Pirates this spring.
 
Walking down the stairs of the Tampa-San Juan charter I was behind Perkins. When I hit the ground a woman surprised me with an excited bear hug. We walked towards the bus and Perk said “know who that was? Vera Clemente, Roberto’s widow.”
 
That night was my second ever trip into a casino. Now maybe I have made 10 trips, this was the most memorable. Busy sweating at the $10 black jack table, I heard a roar from across the room. Once I lost my money I wandered over.    
 
What was going on was a scene out the movies. The shooter was on a roll. Players were plunking down bets. People were three and four deep as the shooter rolled, won and everyone cheered.
 
“Baby Needs A New Pair Of Shoes!”
 
Looking left over one man’s shoulder, then another, I finally gazed on the shooter. It was Perky. Don’t want to say that he was hot but the Mormon players were betting, too.
 
Both games were rained out and players scattered for Tampa-bound planes: four seats on this one, six on the next.
 
In the early 1970s Perky wrote his first story on the majors when the Jays were a dream in Herb Solway’s eye. He contacted George Gross, sports editor of the Toronto Sun, and Gross agreed to pay him for a story on New York Yankee reliever Dave Pagan, of Nipawin, Sask. Perkins went to Yankee Stadium sat around postgame with Hall of Famer Whitey Ford and headed home.
 
“George ran the story, but then he stiffed me,” Perkins said. 
 
A Grade 2 student when Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski homered to beat the Yankees in 1960, Perkins always had a love of sport and decided to enroll at Ryerson. He wanted to be a broadcaster on TV or radio. A Ryerson prof gave him good advice saying, “you don’t have the looks for TV and you don’t have the voice for radio, so you are best to go into print.”
 
Perkins worked four years at the Globe and 36 at the Star covering 10 Olympics, 58 golf majors and 14 World Series. Yet he learned early while still at Ryerson how humbling the business can be. Globe sports editor Jim Vipond sent him to Varsity Arena to do a story on Bobby Hull who was in town to play the Toronto Toros.
 
Now, Perkins, who has published his first book -- Fun and Games: My 40 Years Writing Sports -- is a radio regular on Prime Time Sports on The FAN. 
 
“So, I was walking around Ryerson as pretty hot stuff, I have a byline in the Globe and Mail,” Perkins recalled. A couple of days later in a rush from class to work he stopped for some fish and chips to take to the office.
 
And there it was. . . . his byline on the Hull story, right near the tape on the fish and chips box. “I thought it was timeless literature. I’ve wrapped a lot of fish in 40 years.”

Twas a busy day yet a good time was had by all at the well-orchestrated luncheon run by John Iaboni and Steve McAllister with Paul Hendrick as the emcee in the hub of Canada’s media centre. Nine awards in addition to Perkins, were presented: 

 
- His Honour, Douglas H. Mitchell, Sports Media Canada President’s Award: Mitchell was honored for career leadership roles in amateur and professional sports. 
 
The trip to the Royal York was not Mitchell’s first rodeo as he has been inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, named Sportsman of the Year in 2007 by the Calgary Booster Club, earned the Lester Pearson Award as an alumnus of the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union (now U Sports), earned the Alberta Order of Excellence and the Order of Canada.
 
“It’s an honour and a privilege to receive the Sports Media Canada President’s Award,” Mitchell said. “I’ve always been supportive of the value of the media, particularly in sports. And although I recognize times change I’m somewhat saddened to see the shift to social media which has reduced the number of those icons who had a great passion for sports and spent a lifetime contributing to the success of sports in our country.”
 
Mitchell left Calgary to skate for the Colorado College Tigers in Colorado Springs, Colo., on a hockey scholarship. As a senior he asked football coach Jerry Carle if he could try out. Mitchell praised Carle for giving him the chance for the audition. One year of football led to playing football for the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, playing for the BC Lions and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats which led to becoming CFL commissioner for five years.
 
He articled at the law firm of Howard, Mackie specializing in corporate, commercial and sports law. When the firm merged to become Borden Ladner Gervais, he assumed responsibilities as National co-chair and now the firm has more than 700 lawyers.
 
Besides his stint as CFL boss from 1984-88, he is part-owner of the Calgary Stampeders, was a backer of the Canada Olympic Hockey program, served as a member of the National Hockey League Board of Governors and next month proves that he is a man for all sports addressing the Western Major Baseball League owners. 
 
How well-rounded is this national treasures? Well, he is also chair of both the Calgary Airport Authority and the Calgary Tourism Sports Authority, which we think means you can call him when your bags are lost arriving in Calgary as well as when you need tickets for the Calgary Stampede. 
 
Mitchell is also past chairman of the Alberta Economic Development Authority, past president of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and past chairman of the Board of Governors of SAIT. After creating the annual BLG Awards honouring Canadian university athletes, he now serves as chairman. 
 
The UBC Thunderbird Arena bears his name is now known as the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre.
 

- Frank Gunn, The Canadian Press, Sports Media Canada George Gross Award for photography for coverage of the Rio Olympics: Gunn said it was both “humbling and unwise” for Sport Media Canada to honour him a second time ... and give him the microphone.
 
Putting on his glasses he read from a well-prepared speech with more big words than we have ever heard a photographer use. He told of meeting his partner Kelly covering the World Cup of curling in Korea. “Our first date was to the DMZ,” he said. 
 
He is in his fourth decade of making celebrities of athletes from his first shot in 1984 (Canada’s Ben Johnson) to Rio (Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and Canada’s Andre De Grasse). Gunn’s audience runs from coast to coast. 

    
 
-       Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press, Sports Media Canada George Gross Award for sportswriting for coverage of the Rio Olympics, Paralympics and the Toronto Raptors’ playoff run: Ewing was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, doing a tremendous job covering the Paralympics. Former Formula 1 driver Alex Zanardi had won gold on the eve of the 15-year anniversary of when he lost his legs in a motor sport crash.
 
The hand-cyclist finished first in the H5 road time trial in Rio. He had both legs amputated after crashing in the American Memorial 500 CART race on Sept. 15, 2001 at Lausitz, Germany. The day Zanardi won was the day Ewing received the call that come November this honour would be presented.
 
“I called my dad (Bill),” said Ewing with a daughter’s love. Bill Ewing was a receiver for the 1953 Stampeders and now patrols the sidelines watching rugby in Vancouver, his first love.
 
“He watched me when I competed, I could hear his voice and now it’s like my dad is with me all the time,” said Ewing, who calls her father every day to discuss the competition or game she covered the night before. Like the time the Raptors won in overtime in the playoffs and Bill, 86, answered the phone without a hello saying “I’m 96 now.” Ewing is so lucky to have a pop follow her pursuits daily. 
 
When Ewing told Dwayne Casey her father’s line, the Raptors coach apologized for aging her father with the narrow victory. 
 
The writer of the year thanked editors Julie Scott and Neil Davidson as well as her children Chandra, 30, Emma, 24, and son Aidan, 21. Hired in 2000, Ewing has covered six Olympics, four Commonwealth and four Pan Am games -- despite a fear of flying. 
 
Davidson, CP senior sports writer, introduced Ewing telling the crowd what a busy woman churning stories on our successes and near misses at the Olympics and Paralympics as well as covering the Raptors like a tarp. 
 
The thing about CP writers is that for decades their words wore seen coast to coast -- a lot more than scribes with daily papers -- yet not always did the reader did not know who the author was. Papers had the option of either running the byline or using ‘CP and the dateline.’ Story is two lines two long? No problem. Whack the byline, deskers would say. With this award Ewing’s byline should never be chopped.
 
Besides the Raptors in the past year Ewing The Writing Machine has written about figure skating, marathon, track and field, sailing, soccer, basketball, triathlon, Olympic athletes mixed martial arts and chronicling the Raptors,    
 
And when Ewing hits the send button her story goes to newspapers and websites across the country. We looked in one week of library search her work appeared in such daily bugles as the Montreal Gazette, Cornwall Standard Freeholder, Ottawa Citizen, The Brockville Recorder & Times, North Bay Nugget, The Sault Star, The Sudbury Star, The Belleville Intelligencer, Kingston Whig-Standard, Northumberland Today, Toronto Sun, National Post, Stratford Beacon-Herald, Orillia Packet & Times, The Barrie Examiner, Welland Tribune, St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review, St. Thomas Times Journal, London Free Press, Windsor Star, Kenora Daily Miner, Timmins Press, Winnipeg Sun, Calgary Sun, Calgary Herald, Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, The StarPhoenix in Saskatoon, Vancouver Sun, The Province in Vancouver, the Times Colonist in Victoria and who knows how many we missed some.  

 
 
-       President and GM Masai Ujiri, Toronto Raptors, Sports Media Canada George Gross Award for top sports executive: Usually it’s easy to say this guy or that woman gave the best speech. If this wasn’t the best it was in-again, out-again, round-the-rim best.
 
“I feel like such a dumb ass, I’m the only one who didn’t produce any notes,” Ujiri started. “I’m so proud to be part of Toronto. This city will win in all sports. And I want to thank (president-elect) Donald Trump for making Toronto an unbelievable destination.
 
“People used to think we would have troubles with free agents because of the cold, because of taxes or because of customs. Well, we’re so proud to be here in Toronto.”
 
Later the Nigerian-born GM said “this country has an obligation to show how peaceful and friendly we are, to show how we respect each other. We have to show the whole world.”
 
He recognized Wayne Embry his senior basketball advisor and the GM told the story about him cussing at a pre-game rally.
 
“I received a call from my mother, then my wife spoke to me and then I got home and I received a call from Wayne who asked “what ... are you doing?”
 
 
-       George Dulmage, Sports Media Canada George Gross Award, Posthumous Honour Roll: Paul Dulmage accepted on behalf of his father and three generations of media members.
 
George Dulmage hired George Gross to work at The Toronto Telegram and then Gross hired Paul Dulmage.
 
“It was easy to follow in pop’s footsteps, but it was impossible to improve,” said Dulmage, who told the story of what a competitive market place Toronto was in 1954. The Tely had five editions a day. The Star had five editions a day. And the biggest story of the year was Marilyn Bell swimming across Lake Ontario.
 
George Dulmage rented a boat and got enough for the Tely photog could take a picture of Bell touching the break water. It was the front page picture in the Tely. The headline Jack Dulmage suggested could have been “Telegram 1, Star 0.”
 
A list of the Dulmage family tree with white and red blood cells mixed with a dash of ink from the old linotype machine
 
Mark Dulmage, George’s father gave George his first assignment when he was 13 years at the Owen Sound Sun-Times; George Dulmage who was honoured that day; Jack Dulmage, George’s brother a Windsor Star veteran, Elmer Dulmage, George’s brother who owned a newspaper in New Hampshire, Paul Dulmage, George’s son and former writer at The Tely, who received the award, Douglas Dulmage, George’s son and worked with CP, Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal, Mark Dulmage, George’s nephew retired foreign correspondent AP & CBS News and finally Carper Dulmage, George’s nephew retired west coast producer ABC News.

 
-       Graham Leggat, Sports Media Canada George Gross Award, Posthumous Honour Roll: Leggat was as the first head coach of the Toronto Metros 1971.
 
As the Metros got off the ground they went 5-10-9 to finish third. His daughter, Alexandra, told a moving to Toronto from Scotland, being housed at the Royal York and thinking “this was our home.”
 
There also was the story of team party Leggat had at his home in which he painted every player’s name onto the wall of the basement with his daughter saying “I always wondered what would happen when they went to sell that house.”
 
Year 2 saw the Metros go 4-6-4 as eventually the franchise was known as Metro-Croatia and then the Toronto Blizzard. Leggat became managing director of the Edmonton Drillers in 1979.
 
“By now by father would have said something witty and rude, but being graciously humble was also a trait,” she said. 
 
Leggat began a second career as an TSN analyst, worked the 1976 Summer Olympics and World Cup for CBC, hosted Soccer Saturday. He was inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame as a builder in 2001. He died a year ago at 81.

 
-       John Saunders, Sports Media Canada George Gross Award, Posthumous Honour Roll: Saunders was an all-star defenceman as a junior in Montreal, receiving a scholarship to skate for the Western Michigan University Broncos 1974–76. Saunders transferred to Ryerson University in Toronto and played for the Rams from 1976–78, earning OUA all-star honours. 
 
He entered the work force as news director for in Espanola, Ont., in 1978, moved on to become sports anchor in North Bay, the ATV News in New Brunswick and then joined CITY-TV in Toronto. He moved south working as a sports anchor in Baltimore for four years until 1986 and then joined ESPN.
 
Saunders was the clam amongst the sometimes stormy set of The Sports Reporters when voices raised and guests went off target. He replaced the legendary Dick Schaap, steering conversations back to the target in a clam and easy manner. He co-hosted NFL Primetime, NHL broadcasts, college football, the Baseball Night in America banner and anchored ABC’s coverage of the 1995 World Series. He returned north as the TV play-by-play announcer for the Raptors from 1995-2001.
 
Daughter Jenna accepted the honor and spoke how her pop was “proudly Canadian,” how the licence plate on one of his cars had a Blue Jays logo, while the other had a Raptors logo and the ring tone on his cell phone ring was “Oh Canada.”
 
“I grew up cheering for Canada and today I am happy I have dual citizenship,” Jenna said, drawing laughs with her wry reference to the U.S. election two days earlier. 
 
During this remarks, Ujiri looked to where Jenna Saunders and her cousin Wanda were sitting.
 
“John was a wonderful man; he sent me a note asking for help telling me that his nephew was planning a trip to Kenya,” Ujiri said, “I was busy and didn’t answer right away and two days later he passed away ... and I had not responded.”
 
A supporter of juvenile diabetes research and a founding board member of the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research, Saunders died on August 10 at the unfair age of 61.  
 
Daughter Aleah Saunders tweeted “Picture my dad, Jim Valvano and Stuart Scott smoking cigars and drinking cognac together in heaven. It makes me smile thinking about it.”

 
 
-       John Badham, broadcaster, Sports Media Canada George Gross Award, career achievement: Born in the Brock, Sask., he went to school in Weyburn and began working at a local hospital. He was 20 in 1957 when a new radio station opened. Down he went to the station and soon he was in broadcasting, the start of a 31-year career. 
 
He was the voice of the Saskatchewan Rough Riders in Regina, the Toronto Argos, the BC Lions in Vancouver, the Hamilton Tiger Cats and the Ottawa Rough Riders before arriving in Peterborough at CHEX TV and radio in 1988. Badham covered the 1976 Montreal Olympics and the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.  
 
His sons Perry and Paul accepted on behalf of their father. His sons Perry and Paul accepted on behalf of their father. Perry told the story of his father and Winnipeg Jets owner Ben Hatskin flying off to give Chicago Black Hawks Golden Jet Bobby Hull a large check -- both in size and zeros -- of $1 million. Perry said his father held the check. 

_ Jerry Howarth (for more click here) Sports Media Canada George Gross Award, broadcasting.   
 
 
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