Two prestigious B.C. sports institutions are heaping fanfare on Vancouver athletes this month. Sport B.C. announced its finalists for athlete of the year and the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame named its class of 2012 inductees on Tuesday. The Hall of Fame roster includes three athletes, two builders, one team and two pioneers-all who made their mark in Vancouver. Here are four athletes with impressive pedigrees.
- Andrea Neil was selected for Canada's national soccer team at 19. She earned 132 caps, which for a time put her ahead of every other national team member, male or female.
- Howard Kelsey, before he was an influential basketball promoter, was a star basketball player. He played more than 400 national team games at a time when Canada was consistently ranked in the world's top six and his record scoring average of 34.5 points a game as a Point Grey high school student still stands.
- Bernard "Buster" Moberg could fire a 100-mile-per-hour fastball when he played in the South Hill Senior A men's league from 1958 to 1971 and he rewrote the record book by earning the most strikeouts (1,598, for an amazing average of 1.5 per inning) and most no-hitters (11), among others. He pitched for six B.C. teams at the world championships and four times led a Vancouver team to the Canadian championship title.
- Barbara Howard, recognized as a pioneer, was a sprinter in the 1930s and one of the fastest women in the British Empire: as a 17-year-old in 1938 she ran the 100-yards in 11.2 seconds to claim the British Empire Games record. She was also likely the first black athlete to represent Canada in international competition.
Twitter: @MHStewart
