Rich Harden remembers sitting at a phone with his dad, Russ, and cold calling U.S. colleges: 鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 even recruited, but so many people helped me out.鈥�
Dave Calder recalls his grandfather picking him up from St. Andrew鈥檚 school and driving him down to Elk Lake where Victoria City Rowing Club coaches would give him extra training: 鈥淚 was a pimply-faced nobody but they were willing to help me.鈥�
Harden and Calder will now enter the Victoria Sports Hall of Fame with the Class of 2018 during the induction ceremonies tonight at the Westin Bear Mountain.
鈥淟ots of people helped me onto the podium in Beijing,鈥� said Calder, who won the silver medal in men鈥檚 pair with Brentwood College grad Scott Frandsen in the 2008 Olympics.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 what this community is about,鈥� added the 40-year-old Calder, a world championships gold medallist, who competed in four Olympic Games.
He recalled looking up to his idols and Olympic-medallists Darren Barber and Derek Porter on Elk Lake.
鈥淭his city is such an athletic hub of excellence,鈥� said Calder, who has stayed in the sport as executive director of Rowing sa国际传媒
Harden was undersized but a study in compact efficiency. He came out of Layritz minor baseball to record a 59-38 Major League Baseball record over nine seasons in the majors, mostly with the Oakland Athletics, with a 3.76 career ERA and brilliant 949 strikeouts in 928 innings, which is the 14th best strikeout-rate-by-innings in MLB history.
鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 even thinking about the pros or college. I didn鈥檛 know much about it. I just wanted to have fun playing baseball,鈥� said Harden.
Injuries concluded the Claremont Secondary graduate鈥檚 career far too soon with many baseball observers wondering how great he really could have been on the mound. Instead, he鈥檚 entering his hometown sports hall of fame at age 36.
鈥淚t was frustrating how it ended and I wish it could have lasted longer to see what I could have done. It happened so quickly and I just went with it, putting my head down, and working hard.鈥� said Harden.
鈥淏ut now I have a busy family [in Arizona with two young children] and baseball feels like a different lifetime.鈥�
Also being enshrined with the Class of 2018 tonight are University of Victoria Vikes great and Canadian Olympic team field-hockey goaltender Deb Whitten, whose reflexes, agility and steely resolve backstopped sa国际传媒 to two Pan Am Games medals, at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and 1990 and 1994 World Cups. She also backstopped the UVic Vikes to the 1989 and 1991 CIUA (now U Sports) national titles and to four sa国际传媒 West championships. It all started as a kid when older brother Greg told Deb Whitten, now associate superintendent of School District 61, that she would have to go in goal if she wanted to play with the boys in road hockey.
鈥淭he culture and climate of sport in Victoria was conducive to success,鈥� said Whitten.
鈥淲e were not individual players at UVic. We were all team players. There was such a sense of community and team. You never felt alone. That got several of us to the next level and translated into success with the national team in international play.鈥�
The 2018 induction class also includes four-time Canadian senior women鈥檚 golf champion Alison Murdoch, the legendary late judo builder Yeiji Inouye, former MLB umpire Ian Lamplugh, swim coach Ron Jacks, whose lengthy career on the pool deck has produced national and Olympic medallists, and former SportHost Victoria executive director Hugh MacDonald.
The Victoria Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1991. Plaques honouring the Class of 2018 will join those of the 223 previous inductees which hang on the concourse walls of Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.
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