Elliott Dagg lived for football and played it from Junior Bantam through Midget in the Victoria Spartans program.
The sport he loved will help him be remembered today through an event at Westhills Stadium to raise funds for both sports scholarships and bursaries for local athletes and for leukemia research.
The defensive end died of that form of cancer on Jan. 6 at the age of 19.
鈥淪ports were a huge part of Elliott鈥檚 life,鈥� his mother, Kathy Hogan, said. 鈥淗e also played rugby and lacrosse and worked in summer camps at the Braefoot Athletic Association. But you could really feel his passion for football.鈥�
So much so that the Reynolds Secondary graduate was invited as part of the sa国际传媒 Lions-sponsored Senior Bowl training camp for Grade 12-age players.
All four Spartans teams are playing league games at home today in Peewee, Junior Bantam, Bantam and Midget from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the stadium in Langford 鈥� the only time that happens all season 鈥� so the organization said it was the ideal moment for the Remembering Elliott Dagg Fund event. All the Spartans players will wear decals bearing the initials 鈥淓.D.鈥� on their helmets.
鈥淲e will explain it to our younger players and we believe it will be an inspirational day for them,鈥� said Allen Lavoie, vice-president of the Spartans Football Association.
Players from the Victoria Rebels of the sa国际传媒 Junior Football Association will pass the hat through the stands. Dagg would have gone on to play for the Rebels in junior.
A ceremony will be held between games at 1:30 p.m. during which mom Kathy, Elliott鈥檚 former Spartans coach Dave Shortt and two former teammates will speak.
鈥淓lliott was a quiet kid, but a great kid, who worked really hard at football and had an unrelenting motor. He was the kind of player you wanted everybody to be,鈥� said Shortt, the coach co-ordinator for Spartans football.
鈥淲e were talking to him about going on in school. Elliott was definitely good enough to play CIS.鈥�
The first $25,000 for the Remembering Elliott Dagg Fund was raised through a golf tournament sponsored by the Urban Development Institute Capital Region, where Kathy works. Another $5,000 came through a used- equipment sale in the Braefoot lacrosse box.
The annual monies raised by the Remembering Elliott Dagg Fund for athletic scholarships/bursaries and for cancer research will be distributed respectively through Football sa国际传媒 and the Victoria Foundation.
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