A true pioneer in the world of high school sports, not only in Calgary, but also within the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association and the Canadian School Sports Federation.

John Mayell joined the staff of the Calgary School Board in 1940. His major contribution to the welfare of Albertan’s young and old has been as an educator. Specifically, following his service for his country during World War II, he served as a teacher, coach, counselor and administrator for Calgary schools. He earned the highest praise for the enlightened and dedicated leadership he brought to his work.

As Supervisor of Physical Education and Director of Athletics for the Calgary Public School Board, Mayell designed and carried out one of the most advanced and effective programs available in Canada at the time.

As an administrator, John Mayell made his mark within the city of Calgary as a member of the Advisory Board for Sports and Recreation; his new and progressive suggestions led many discussion of this board.

John was a founding father of the ASAA, acting as secretary to the first meeting, and went on to become the association’s second President, a role in which he excelled and helped set in place the policy cornerstones that make the ASAA what it is today. He was recognized with the ASAA’s highest honour, the Robert H. Routledge Award of Merit in 1971 and his other accolades are too numerous to mention.

Jim Whitelaw from Lethbridge, Alberta was a fixture on the high school sport coaching scene from the 1940-s through to the late 1970’s.

He spent almost 30 years coaching basketball and football at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute. In basketball, was a lifelong student of the game and spent considerable time learning from the best. Jim’s teams competed in 13 ASAA provincial championships and won five of those as early as 1958 and as late as 1979. In addition to good discipline and the respect of his players, Jim attributes his success to focus on the fundamentals of the game, especially footwork drills, and being able to quickly adapt to the offence of opposing teams.

In football, Jim’s teams captured 19 league championships and he was a strong advocate for football to become an ASAA sport, which occurred a few years after his retirement. One can only wonder how many ASAA football championships coach Whitelaw might have won had there been such a thing during his tenure as coach at LCI.

Jim was also active within the ASAA, having been a founder and regular attendee of ASAA meetings on behalf of the South West Zone. Amongst other awards Jim has won, he is a former ASAA Routledge Award winner and inductee into the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame. He spent a career serving the young people of Lethbridge and Alberta.

Dr. Herb McLachlin, a true leader in Alberta Sport and recreation in Alberta for well over half a century is being inducted as an official tonight as well as a founder of the ASAA.

Herb was an early advocate of officiating, and began training officials in 1948. He was a founder of both the Edmonton and Alberta Basketball Officials Association which has grown from 9 to 178 members and he also served as President of that association and the Canadian Basketball Officials Association.

Herb officiated the first basketball championship of the ASAA and many following that. He and other colleagues recruited young officials, trained and mentored them over several decades and he was clearly a driving force in the development and quality of officiating we see in basketball today. His philosophy in providing well trained officials was to further the ideals of good fair competition.

He was an active participant in ASAA Board meetings over many years, and made contributions in several other areas as well including, but not limited to: selector, Canadian Olympic team; Dean of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the U of A; statistician, CFL from 1953 to the present; and Board member for both the 1978 Commonwealth Games and 1983 Universiade.

Dr. McLachlin has received several awards including the Queens Jubilee Gold Medal and several inductions including the University of Alberta Sports Wall of Fame and has made more contributions to the ASAA both directly and indirectly than we could hope to cover tonight.

Prior to March 1956, there had been a variety of meeting of educators involved in sports and physical education. There had been ongoing discussion about the possible creation of a high school athletic association, and while there had been unofficial provincial championships in high school football, basketball and curling, there was no organization in place to coordinate such events.

In coordination with the first ASAA championship - boys basketball - in March 1956, a meeting was held during which the ASAA was created. The founders called for the need to ensure that school sports took place in a well organized and educational environment and in a spirit that promoted good sportsmanship.

The vision shown by those individuals half a century ago, has gone to have a positive impact on the lives of well over a million students who have taken part in competitive school sports of which more than 150,000 have participated in a provincial championship. Students who through their positive involvement in school sports went on to become everything from teachers to corporate CEO’s; students who went on to have children and in some cases grandchildren who have taken part in high school sports. Today their vision has grown from a single championship amongst a handful of schools to 30 championships held across 11 sports, and over 30,000 student athletes and 3000 volunteer coaches in 350 member schools.

It is with great pride that the association recognizes the Founders of the association by inducting them as a group into the inaugural year of the Alberta High School Sports Hall of Fame.