Wilkes steps down as NRHSAA football convenor
It was a come full circle moment last month when Sandy Wilkes performed his last official duty before stepping down as football convenor for the Niagara Region High School Athletic Association.
The 69-year-old native of Niagara-on-the-Lake was on hand on a cold November evening at Governor Simcoe to present the Tier 2 championship trophy to the captains of the West Niagara Wolfpack following their victory over the Governor Simcoe Redcoats.
Two of the West Niagara captains, Kylen Azem-Simmons and Xavier Zatylny, were children of Wilkes’ former students at South Lincoln High School, where he taught and coached for 23 years.
“It was a really cool way to end it. They are both graduating high school and I taught the whole Simmons family. It was a great family,” he said. “And the fact that the two connected for a passing touchdown was even cooler. It brought things full circle.”
Wilkes spent one semester at Kernahan Park and then resided at South Lincoln High School for the rest of his teaching career, where he coached track and field, boys and girls basketball and football.
He retired from teaching in 2011 and started convening football for the Niagara Region High School Athletic Association that fall. He started with football and then morphed into baseball, slo-pitch rugby, lacrosse, boys and girls soccer.
Wilkes liked the other sports but football was his passion.
“I just enjoy it. I have always watched the CFL, the NFL and I played it in high school and enjoyed it as a student-athlete. I went to Western when Western was winning with Donnie Marshall’s father and uncle.”
He will continue on convening high school hockey but he came to the realization this fall that it was time to end his football convenorship.
“I have a masters degree in philosophy of play and a major tenet of play is fun and it is just not as fun as it used to be. It is difficult trying to make sure that all the particles are in the right order, trying to make sure the coaches aren’t stuck at schools because of bussing issues, making sure the principals are happy with game times and finding enough officials. The numbers of officials has dropped substantially and obtaining officials for games is primary but it is difficult to do.”
He enjoyed his duties.
“I like the collegiality and I liked helping out the program because my career was helping out kids. As I said at my retirement, I was in education for seven decades because I started kindergarten in 1959 and I retired from teaching in 2011. When I would go the games, it was fun watching the kids and presenting the trophies to the teams at the end.”
It wasn’t all fun and games.
“One of things that I won’t be missing is going out there in bad weather,” Wilkes said, with a laugh.
He feels there are a number of challenges the new football convenor will face.
“For sure it is the scheduling because of the officials, because of the bussing and because of the question whether or not night games will go forward.”
Another major issue is how to make it competitive for the upper-echelon teams, the middle teams and the lower teams.
“I don’t have a solution but the one thing I might suggest to the coaches and whoever is taking over is to ask who would volunteer to be part of a premier league, assuming the premier league would be made up of the Notre Dames and the Myers,” he said. “Those people would be SOSSA bound. The hoary chestnut will be that not all triple A schools will want to play up and that’s why I say voluntary. Do they want to play in a more competitive league and what is right for the kids? That is the most important thing.”
He has been happy with how the high school game has progressed.
“I like it now because there is the consistency. At South Lincoln, we played four-down football for a long time but now everything is CFL-oriented and I like the Canadian game,” he said. “The competition issue still has to be addressed but I think that because of organizations like the Spears and Generals, the athletic kids are more skilled when they get into high school. The fact that the kids get to play travel football in the summer has been a major boost to high school football.”
Wilkes knows exactly what he will be doing with his spare time come next fall.
“I have been told by all my other retired colleagues that fall is a great time to travel because the weather is still good, the crowds are gone and the prices are cheap.”
