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BARRHAVEN, ONTARIO
FRIDAY • NOVEMBER 1 • 2013
Headed for
the Hall?
Led by a group of Barrhaven residents, members of the Ottawa area touch football community are rallying to support a bid to put Ed Laverty into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame. Laverty
has been heavily involved in the Ottawa Nepean Touch Football League since its inception 50 years ago, and has helped grow the sport both locally and nationally. For the full story, see
page 20.
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Page 20 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2013
The IndependentSPORTS
BARRHAVEN INDEPENDENT
The Godfather of Touch Football deserves his day
For the past half century, Ed Laverty has been the drive behind the growth of touch football both in Ottawa and throughout the country. There is currently a movement to get the local
icon into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.
Mike Carroccetto photo
Over the last half century, Ed Laverty has taken what started out as a group of guys playing touch football and turned
it into the cornerstone of touch football in Canada. Now, a Facebook page called “Ed for Hall” is dedicated to putting
the man responsible for the sport’s growth into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame.
By Jeff Morris
Ed Laverty’s breakfast
is getting cold.
As people walk by his
table at Broadway Bar
and Grill in Barrhaven,
he is inevitably recognized by someone walking by who stops to say
hi. It happens every few
minutes, and it happens
everywhere Ed Laverty
goes.
“Everyone who has
ever played touch football knows him,” said
Tammy Laverty, a Royal
LePage real estate agent,
of her father. “Everywhere we go, someone
knows him and has to
come up and say hi.”
Between visits and between stories, the Godfather of Touch Football
has another bite of his
now cold over-easy eggs
and toast. Ed, his wife,
Trudy, and daughter
Tammy try to come up
with a number of how
many people know Ed
through touch football.
“I don’t know how
many thousand,” Trudy
says. “Over 50 years, with
more than a hundred
teams some years. Thousands of people.”
As the Ottawa Touch
Football League cele-
brates its 50th anniversary
this year, there is a huge
push to get Ed Laverty
into the Ottawa Sports
Hall of Fame. He has
been the face and voice
of touch football, not just
in Ottawa, but in Canada, for most of those 50
years. He has grown the
sport, not just through
attracting hundreds of
teams, but through involving and teaching
female players. He has
organized and hosted
countless tournaments
that have drawn thousands of players to Ottawa. He is also responsible for the formation of
Touch Football Canada.
“Looking back to 50
years ago, there is no
way I could have ever
imagined that the league
would grow to the point
that it has,” he said.
Laverty grew up on
military bases. When he
was living at the Rockcliffe Base, he got to play
football at Rideau High
School, under legendary
coach Gene Robillard. Rideau had a reputation as
a football power in those
days. The fact that Russ
Jackson was on their staff
only solidified that reputation.
“I played for Rideau
High School, but after our
tackle football practice, I
couldn’t wait to get home
and play touch football,”
he said.
More than a half century later, nothing has
changed. Ed Laverty still
can’t wait to get out there
and play touch football.
The game has been like
the background music or
even the soundtrack of
his life. He played touch
football as a kid on the
base at Rockcliffe, or at
Camp Borden. When his
family moved to Germany, he would play soccer a lot.
“We were there for four
years,” he said. “When we
came home, we came
back by ship. There were
about 100 people waiting
to greet us. Soon after we
landed, there was a big
touch football game.”
Laverty
rekindled
his love for football. He
would go to Lansdowne
Park with his father and
see the Ottawa Rough
Riders in their glory years.
He cheered on Jackson,
Ron Stewart, Ron Lancaster, and his favourite
player of them all, Bobby
Simpson.
One day in 1963, Laverty stumbled upon a
group of guys and his
world opened up. That’s
the day Laverty met Papi
Lanthier.
“I met Papi at Shillington Park,” he recalled.
“There were guys playing
touch football there, and
I got the chance to join
them. They had started a
small league. They played
baseball too.”
The league was the Ottawa Nepean Touch Football League. It had been
started by Eden Windish.
Ed’s initial involvement
in the organization was
to organize the league’s
banquet.
“When they decided to
have a banquet, I offered
to run it,” he said. “We
held it at Tudor Hall, and
we served Kentucky Fried
Chicken. There were
about 100 people there.”
Soon,
the
league
would grow. Laverty’s
role expanded. Windish
would ask Laverty to take
over the organization of
the league.
“We grew to eight or
nine teams,” he recalled.
“We decided to create
more divisions so that
people could play at their
own levels.”
While Lanthier and
Laverty were tearing it
up on the field, Laverty
had created a women’s
division to attract more
players. He would become instrumental in exposing girls and women
to the game. He coached
a team that included his
wife and daughter. For
generations, Laverty has
been actively involved in
promoting touch football to girls and women.
The NCSSAA high school
girls’
touch
football
league is a direct result of
Laverty’s work in promoting the game, and he still
referees girls’ high school
games. The Nepean Redskins also run a girls’
touch football program in
the spring, which is also a
direct result of Laverty’s
work in the community.
Laverty was also looking for a chance to grow
the competition base for
the Ottawa men’s teams.
“We heard they had a
few teams in Montreal,
so we organized a tournament,” he said. “We
played at Twin Elm Rugby
Park, because they had a
lot of fields and it’s a great
facility. The guys loved it.”
Tournaments would
become another defining feature of Laverty’s
wife. Trudy was always
there to help him organize and run things.
Tammy would always
be there, helping out. So
would Ed’s son, Gordie,
who has remained actively involved in touch
football through the
years in a number of
capacities.
While Lanthier had
been the quarterback
and Laverty had been a
receiver, Laverty eventually decided to start
his own team and play
quarterback.
“Fitzsimmons
was
our sponsor, so we became the Fitzsimmons
Bombers,” he recalled.
“We would later change
our name to the Silver
Bullets.”
The rivalry between
the Silver Bullets and
Lanthier’s
Valiquette
Alouettes would become
local legend. The two
buddies wanted nothing
more than to be the best
team in the city, which
often meant being the
best in the country. Laverty would take his team
to tournaments in Toronto and Hamilton, and
to Vancouver, Calgary
and Edmonton.
In the thousands
of games Laverty has
played in over the years,
there is one that stands
out.
Laverty continues on page 21
BARRHAVEN INDEPENDENT The IndependentSPORTS
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2013 Page 21
laverty continues from page 20
“The prize money at
the Nationals was pretty
good,” he recalled. “It had
grown to $1500. We went
to Toronto and we took
a motor home. We were
playing against the Ontario champions, a team
called the Spartans. They
were considered the top
team in the country. John
Davidson was our halfback, and we went back
and forth with them all
game. On the last play
of the game, I threw a
pass to Mark McGee in
the back of the end zone
and we won 48-46. On
the way home, there was
a party like you wouldn’t
believe!”
Through the decades,
Laverty has used tournaments as a vehicle for
fundraising in the community. A number of local charities have benefitted from Laverty’s work
organizing events. The
city’s economy has also
benefitted, as his tournaments have drawn thousands of players and their
families to Ottawa over
the years as visitors and
tourists.
“Last year, we had a
lingerie
tournament,”
he recalled. “All of the
money raised at the tournament went to cancer
research. Everyone wore
their underwear outside
of their pants.”
As the Ottawa Nepean
Touch Football League
would eventually just become the Ottawa Touch
Football League, Laverty
would rely heavily on the
support from his family
to nurture it. It would
have more than 100
teams in five divisions,
providing
recreational
and competitive opportunities for thousands of
local players through the
years. In addition, the
growth of the sport that
he led has created hundreds of part-time jobs
for officials and referees.
“I’m very proud of
it,” Laverty says of the
league and how it has
evolved over the past 50
years. “Who ever would
have thought that those
games at Shillington Park
would lead to something
this big? We weren’t even
thinking about things
like that. We just wanted
to play.”
Trudy, having finished
her eggs long before,
urges Ed to finish his
breakfast before it gets
too cold.
“I think I can put it all
in perspective for you,”
she said. “On our wedding day, Ed and Papi
were out playing football.
He was late for our wedding. There I am, standing there at the church,
waiting for you. I asked,
‘Where were you?’ He just
looked at me and smiled,
and said, ‘We Won!’ That
pretty much sums up our
lives.”
Meanwhile,
more
people walk by and wave
and say hi to the Godfather of Touch Football.
Some smile, others wave.
A few will say thanks for
giving them a league to
have played in through
the years.
The touch football
community, along with
other notable people like
former CFL star and local football and media
personality Ken Evraire,
are pushing hard to get
Laverty into the Ottawa
Sports Hall of Fame during the 50th anniversary
of the league. Those in
the football community
at every level are supporting the campaign.
There is a Facebook
page, “Ed for Hall”, dedicated to getting him into
the Ottawa Sports Hall of
Fame.
This weekend, as the
league holds its 50th anniversary banquet, there
is no doubt that Laverty’s
nomination will be a
front and centre topic of
discussion and theme for
the evening.
And if Laverty is expected to say a few words
and can’t be found that
night, Trudy will know
exactly where he is.
“Check the parking
lot, he’ll likely be out
there throwing the ball
around with Papi.”
Touch football has been the fabric that has held the Laverty family together. Gord, left, has followed in his father’s footsteps in playing and organizing touch football in the city. Tammy, centre, was an Ottawa Rough Riders cheerleader who is
still an avid fan, and Ed, right, is the man who built touch football to what it is today in the Ottawa area.
In the 1980s, Laverty formed a women’s division of the Ottawa Nepean Touch Football League, mainly so that his daughter,
Tammy, and his wife, Trudy, and Trudy’s sister, Evelyn, could all play.
(Right) While Ed Laverty has
devoted his life to touch
football for the past 50
years, his wife, Trudy, has
been there to help and support him along the way.
(Left) Ed Laverty was late for
his wedding with Trudy, as
he was out playing football
with his buddy Papi Lanthier that morning. “Where
were you?” she asked as he
rushed into the church. “We
won!,” was his reply.