The man behind one of the Sault's finest athletic facilities (7 photos)

Algoma University students and members of the general public enjoy using the institution’s George Leach Centre athletic facilities, but many are not aware of the dedication and efforts of the man after whom the centre is named.

The centre, commonly known as ‘the George Leach’ or GLC, can trace its roots to Leach’s dedication to building and growing an athletics department from humble beginnings for Algoma students in the early 1970s.

Leach became Algoma’s first athletics director in 1972, during those early days when the institution was known as Algoma University College (AUC), affiliated with Sudbury’s Laurentian University.

“He was a straight up guy with a really great sense of humour. He always wanted the best out of you. He was a great man. He did a lot for me. He was always trying to do more for the students,” said Mark Kontulainen, Algoma University student-athlete and varsity services officer, speaking to SooToday.

“He was such a great guy. I met him after high school,” said Kontulainen, who was hired by Leach to be a fitness coordinator at AUC in 1985.

“He did a lot of innovative things for the athletics department. He obtained government grants, and I’m pretty sure he used some of his own funds for some of the projects,” Kontulainen recalled.

AUC already had hockey and basketball teams for its students in the late 1960s, those teams playing in local leagues, while the school was housed in portables located on Sault College property (Sault College then known as Sudbury’s Cambrian College Sault campus), but it was thanks to Leach’s efforts that AUC’s athletics program began to grow, with the support of Ian Brown AUC’s first principal and history professor, and Lawrence Brown AUC’s board of directors chair.

In its early days, AUC’s athletics program included hockey, basketball, curling, volleyball, badminton and skiing.

By the end of the 1972-1973 academic year, there had been tournament wins for AUC’s hockey team, and playoff appearances for the men’s hockey and basketball teams, the women’s basketball team, in addition to three AUC skiers chosen as candidates for the Canadian University Ski Team.

The Algoma College Shingwauks hockey team played in a ‘Brotherhood Hockey League,’ competing against teams from the ACR, St. Joseph Island and Sault College, playing in out of town tournaments against Laurentian University, Lake Superior State College (now Lake Superior State University, or LSSU) and other U.S. teams, Eddie Belanger the team’s star player.

Leach’s wife Lailia said her husband “would bend over backwards for his athletes.” 

AUC faced considerable financial constraints in those early days, the athletics department unable to offer ‘home and home’ hockey series against other universities, but Leach, through written correspondence, was able to arrange travel for the team at the expense of its hosts, the Algoma team always well received.

The team playing its home games at local rinks, Leach arranged for an outdoor rink to be erected at the rear of AUC’s Shingwauk Hall for team practices (the rink also becoming a favourite spot for public use, Leach believing it was a good drawing card for potential AUC students).

To the hockey team’s players, Leach wrote “players are responsible to the team...you must help by ensuring that the sum is vastly greater than its parts.”

To the team’s trainers, he wrote “you must cater to the needs of the players...encourage them at every chance.”

To an acting coach in those days, Leach wrote “there must be a fairness and a strictness...help (for the players) should be all encompassing, not just pertaining to the game.”

Under Leach’s leadership, an AUC fitness trail was built in the woodlands immediately east of Shingwauk Hall, along with a baseball field to the west, where Algoma University residences now stand (the trail and baseball field no longer exist).

As funding became available, a dream came true for Leach in 1984 with the establishment of the AUC Resource Centre for Fitness and Athletics, located in a small brown portable behind Shingwauk Hall, including a universal gym, free weights, stationary exercise machines and offering fitness testing and counselling.

The George Leach Centre opened in 1992, including tennis courts, a gymnasium, squash courts, fitness centre, showers, saunas and meeting rooms.

Algoma an independent university since 2008, the school’s Thunderbird teams are now included in Ontario University Athletics (OUA) and Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) conferences, competing in soccer, cross country running, wrestling, basketball, Nordic skiing, and curling. 

The original George Leach Centre was 39,000 square feet in size in 1992, with a 10,000 square foot expansion of the facility following in 2015.

Born in 1925, an Ottawa native, George Leach studied General Arts at the University of Toronto, where he also played football and hockey.

After flying with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in the Second World War, Leach went on to work at Sudbury’s Adult Education Centre.

He later moved to Sault Ste. Marie to work as an English teacher for Cambrian College’s Sault campus and what was then known as the federal government’s Manpower department (now known as Employment and Social Development Canada).

Algoma students from the early days remember Leach’s office door was always open, Leach acting as a coach, counsellor, friend and recruiter for AUC.

There is no doubt Leach would have been proud of the development of Algoma University athletics and the fitness centre which bears his name.

However, Leach did not live to see the establishment of the centre.

After Leach expressed his wish to slow down and spend more time with family, fishing and travelling, AUC formally approved his retirement May 22, 1986.

The AUC baseball team held a practice at 7 p.m. that same day, Leach taking part.

After a time of laughter with friends, Leach suddenly collapsed.

Despite the best efforts of Mark Kontulainen and Dick McCutcheon (then AUC registrar) to revive him with CPR, Leach was pronounced dead at hospital shortly after 8 p.m., having suffered a severe heart attack.

He was 60.

“He couldn’t be revived. It was really sad. That was devastating,” Kontulainen said.

Flags flew at half mast at AUC for several days after his death.

Leach’s portrait hangs in the lobby of the centre which bears his name.

A plaque below the portrait is inscribed with his favourite quote, made by 19th century American missionary Stephen Grellet: 

“I expect to pass through this world but once, and any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now, let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” 

Leach always carried a written copy of the quote in his wallet.

“George would be really, really pleased to see where we are now,” Kontulainen said.

With files from Mark Morgenstern, former AUC student