2003 BELLEVILLE SPORTS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

  • Robert “Shud” Ethier

    ATHLETE, SOFTBALL

  • Tom Gavey

    BUILDER, MEDIA

  • Terry Allan Meagher

    ATHLETE, HOCKEY

  • Robert "Bob" Walt

    ATHLETE, WEIGHTLIFTING

ROBERT “Shud” ETHIER

ATHLETE, SOFTBALL

“The best lefthander this city has ever produced.” That is how the late Intelligencer sports writer Tom Gavey described Shud Ethier at the height of his fastball career. In fact, Ethier was not only considered the best lefty to ever come out of Belleville fastball, he was also believed to be one of the best ever produced in Canada. Few who played against Ethier would disagree.

When fastball was the city’s most popular summer sport, enjoying a particularly heady heyday in the 1970s, Ethier was king. Many local fastball fans need only recall the legendary marathon at Alemite Park in 1975 pitting Ethier and his Belleville McDonald’s teammates against St. Catharines in an Ontario Fastball League encounter. Few who witnessed it will ever forget it. Pitching against world-class hurler Dick Balint of St. Catharines, Ethier worked 27 innings in a heartbreaking loss. That 1975 classic was symbolic of Ethier’s fastball career. He was a workhorse on the mound and mowed down opposition pitchers with incredible regularity. Examples abound.

In 1963, while working the hill for the Ellis Juniors, Ethier struck out 51 batters over 22 innings in consecutive playoff games. He posted record numbers in the Eastern Ontario Fastball League, firing the first-ever perfect game in the circuit’s history – one of three in Ethier’s EOFL tenure – and tossed a total of 11 no-hitters. In 1979, Ethier registered an 18-and-2 record in the EOFL with a 0.77 ERA. He was voted Most Outstanding Pitcher and league MVP. Even as a child, Ethier demonstrated dominance in his sport of choice. He was a member of the city’s first-ever All-Ontario peewee championship team and later helped Howard and Robert Printing take a provincial intermediate “B” title.

Like many of his Hall of Fame comrades, Ethier’s various league championship and MVP awards are almost too numerous to mention. Later in his fastball career, Ethier turned to officiating and was as proficient calling the shots as he was delivering them. He won the Colling Memorial Award for his outstanding job as an umpire. Ethier died in 2001 at the age of 55.

TOM GAVEY

BUILDER, MEDIA

 Late in his almost 30-year career as a jack-of-all-trades reporter at The Intelligencer, Tom Gavey was voted Belleville’s Most Popular Columnist. It was a well-deserved accolade. Gavey wrote a TV column and rated movies too, but, it was as a sports reporter and columnist that he was most beloved by his myriad readers. Gavey’s weekend sports columns combined the very best of an outstanding writing ability, keen insights, tremendous knowledge of his topic, a razor-sharp wit and a folksy style that appealed to all readers.

Gavey’s first love was softball and he enjoyed covering the various local leagues and following the Belleville McDonald’s when they played in the Ontario Fastball League in the 19701s. But, it was as a hockey writer that Gavey may have made his most indelible imprint on the city’s sports scene. When the Jim’s Pizza juveniles won an All-Ontario championship in 1976, Gavey wrote colourful stories detailing their success.

He graduated to junior hockey and covered the Belleville Bulls for the first 20 years of their existence in the Ontario Hockey League, Gavey’s famous mid-season Bulls report cards were greatly anticipated – and sometimes dreaded – by coaches, players and fans. Away from his desk at The Intelligencer – always piled high with sports magazines and team media guides from the OHL, NHL and Major League Baseball – Gavey demonstrated his versatility by handling the colour commentary on Bulls radio broadcasts. Again, Gavey was with the Bulls on the air from their beginning.

Away from his job writing and talking about sports, Gavey plunged his energies into charity work. He spent 10 years on the executive committee of the Medigas Rick Meagher golf tournament, helping to raise thousands of dollars for the purchase of playground equipment for physically challenged children in Belleville. Suffering from a kidney ailment, Gavey championed various fund raising efforts to assist the local dialysis unit.

Gavey spent time as a minor hockey convener, men’s softball and broomball coach, and working Friday nights at the Quinte Exhibition Raceway. He also served on the Belleville Sports Hall of Fame committee. Educated at Nicholson Catholic College, Gavey attended Ryerson University in Toronto where he studied journalism. He received the Toronto Sun Award for excellence in 1981. Later in his career, in recognition of his valuable contribution to the community, Gavey received a Governor General’s Award Canada 125 medallion. Gavey shunned the limelight, often declaring that being able to live his boyhood dream of covering sports for his hometown newspaper made him the happiest man alive.

In 2002, at the age of 45, Gavey succumbed to kidney disease. That winter, the Bulls honoured his memory by wearing a “TG” patch on their jerseys. Tom would have been tickled.

TERRY ALLAN MEAGHER

ATHLETE, HOCKEY

 Terry Meagher was a pioneer. Starring as a forward for the Belleville Junior B’s in the early 1970’s, Meagher’s stellar play and excellent leadership skills attracted the attention of U.S. college hockey recruiters. In 1973, Meagher accepted a hockey scholarship to Boston University, opening the door for other local shinny stars who later followed his path south. In fact, two of Meagher’s brothers – Rick and Tony – were later signed by Boston University.

With the Terriers, Meagher scored 74 goals and added 68 assists for 142 points in 92 career games. In his senior year, Meagher was team captain, team scoring champion with 30 goals and 55 points, Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association MVP and winner of the Boston University distinguished scholar-athlete award.

After completing a Master’s Degree at Illinois State University in 1977, Meagher soon turned his attention to coaching. The results were spectacular. Twenty years after accepting a position as head hockey coach at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Ma. in 1983, Meagher was among the 40 most winning coaches in NCAA history. During the 2002-2003 season, he surpassed Sid “Century” Smith as winningest coach at Bowdoin with his 327th victory. Meagher’s overall record with the Polar Bears was 327-156-11. On four occasions, Meagher has been voted New England college hockey’s Coach of the Year. He steered Bowdoin to three ECAC championships – the first in 1986 and consecutive titles in 1993 and1994. Fourteen of Meagher’s players have been All-Americans. One of them was a Hobey Baker Award finalist as most outstanding college hockey player in the United States.

Born in Belleville on June 30. 1952, Meagher excelled at all sports during his school years, particularly his high school days at Quinte Secondary. During the summer months, his poise and perfection on ball diamonds around the city and around the province were second to none. But hockey opened the door of opportunity and Meagher strode boldly over the threshold. His players are glad he did. Meagher’s nomination form submitted to the Belleville Sports Hall of Fame selection committee by his sister, Joan, was heartily endorsed by all members of his 2002-2003 Bowdoin College Polar Bears hockey team.t

ROBERT “Bob” WALT

ATHLETE, WEIGHTLIFTING

Bob Walt follows a family tradition. With his induction into the Belleville Sports Hall of Fame in 2003, he becomes the third member of the city’s illustrious ‘First Family of Weightlifting’ to enter the town’s athletic shrine. Walt’s older brothers, Art and Gary, were inducted in 1992. But Bob Walt had to wait until he was 50 to become eligible to enter the hall. That is because he was still competing in his beloved sport of Olympic style weightlifting as an accomplished Masters athlete long after his brothers and most of his rivals had retired from the game. In fact, Walt has often said he is not getting older, just better. His Masters accomplishments would seem to confirm that belief. He is a 10-time Canadian Masters champion and current national record-holder.

Walt was inducted into the Canadian Masters Hall of Fame in 2001. He was World Masters champion in 2000 and is a three-time Pan American Masters champ: in 1999, 2001 and 2002. Walt entered the New Millennium in his fifth decade as a member of Belleville’s Apollo Barbell Club, one of the most respected weightlifting outfits in Canada.

While Walt’s achievements as a Masters lifter are indeed impressive, the seeds for success were clearly sown in his early years with the Apollo Club. Born in Belleville on August 27, 1949, Walt followed his brothers into the Apollo fold where they dominated the local weightlifting scene, competing against each other in the gym and blowing away the competition at weekend contests around the province and, later, the nation.

Walt first tasted success in the iron game in 1966 when he was Canadian teenage champion for his weight class. He added a second teen title in 1969. Walt was a Canadian champion in 1968, Canadian intermediate champion a year later and a British Commonwealth record-holder for two years, from 1967 to 1968. Other titles included an Ontario senior crown in 1966, Best Lifter title at the 1968 provincial championships and the 1969 Ontario Junior belt. At the Canada Games in 1971, Walt won a bronze medal. Two years later, he qualified for the World Championships and was Canadian runner-up in 1976 and 1978.

Walt’s achievements cannot, however, be measured by medals alone. His dedication to the sport includes not only his continued active involvement, but the very fact he provided the once nomadic Apollo Club with a permanent home – in his garage. Walt is proof that age is just a number. It need not be a factor in achieving athletic success.