Letter to the Editor: Gaels’ Football
Am I the only Queen’s football fan who is decidedly ambivalent about the outcome of tomorrow’s Yates Cup game between the Gaels and Laurier Golden Hawks?
The goad for me was not so much the devastating hit and subsequent suspension of Linebacker Justin Pace on the Waterloo Warriors quarterback Nick Orr–football is a contact sport and in real time, decisions are made in a split second–but Head Coach Steve Snyder’s response, or rather complete lack of it; The Kingston Whig Standard properly called him to task on his complete refusal to discuss the incident, which backfired badly and made matters worse. The Journal had nary a word about the matter either. The Gael replacing Pace was himself ejected the following game against York.
The best Queen’s skippers have always enjoyed an avuncular, counselling type role, which is why coaches, particularly football coaches, have always been addressed by the honorific “Coach”. The best of these included Doug Hargraves and Pat Sheahan (the latter summarily dumped when the Gaels could no longer keep up with the football Joneses’, the Western Mustangs) who really had a role in keeping student athletes on the rails leading to degrees in medicine, law, and engineering. Former Gael Stu Lang cultivated the same approach as Head Coach at Guelph.
The last few years of Queen’s football, while successful, have not brought the results that former Athletic Director Leslie Dal Chin promised when she switched coaches back in 2018. Instead there has been a decline in academic standards, and, to judge again by this year’s team, sportsmanship.
Adam de Pencier
Arts ’82, MA ’84
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