The Builders section of a Sports Hall of Fame is reserved for men and women who have contributed time, talent and leadership to the organization and
development of sports.

Generally, these dedicated men rarely hear the plaudits of the crowd; never see their names in headlines and most often are forgotten entirely.

Such a man was the late Lou Stapleton, the beloved former principal and physical education teacher at the Collingwood Collegiate. He is the one man who definitely had left his mark in the development of every phase of high school athletics in the Georgian Bay District. You of this generation, who never know Lou Stapleton, were deprived of the influence of this very special man.

He possessed the gift that enabled him to bring out the most and the best in every
athlete. His keen sense of sportsmanship and fair play left a lasting impression on every student fortunate enough to come under his guidance on a football field, a baseball diamond, the gymnasium or in track and field competition.

He drilled his junior and senior football teams in after school sessions that lasted until after dark and then he had them back at night for blackboard talks.

He was the man responsible for the formation of the Georgian Bay Secondary Schools
Athletic Association and he became its first president. When Stapes first came to Collingwood, football was only two bucks and a kick. But in less than two years he had his players away ahead of Barrie, Owen Sound, Midland and Orillia in the fine points
of the modern game.

His best football team was built around Jack Portland in 1929 and the squad won the
Ontario Secondary Schools championship. His track team brought national acclaim when he brought a small squad of ten jumpers and runners of the C.N.E. Intercollegiate title.

Lou Stapleton was a giant in the athletic field but he died all too soon. His untimely death took place in 1938 at the height of his brilliant career.

Red Fawcett was born in the South End of Collingwood, a section of the town that
produced many great athletes over the past eighty-years.

An exceptionally clean athlete, but an aggressive one, Red starred at every game
he chose to play; Hockey, softball, basketball, football and track and field.
He played them all and he gave everything he had in every contest.

I remember him when he was a freckle-faced kid of eleven or twelve. We kept chasing him away from the ball diamond because he was too small but he kept coming back. He made the South End team with players six years his senior.

Red did not pursue hockey after he left the junior ranks, other than town league,
due to business pressure, but he could have made the Intermediate “A” club anything up until his early thirties.

He possesses a wicket shot from the wing and was an artist at picking the top corner of the net from what seemed to be an impossible angle.

He was always up with the first three scorers in the town league but I think his greatest winning goal came on the night of March 12th, 1934. It was the third and final game of the play-offs between his West End club and the old Central Tigers. The
score was tied at 4-4 and Red had taken a rough ride for 58 minutes from a trio of rough customers-Don Haney, Frank Mirlees and Bill Calvert.

Red knew there was nothing to do but “take it” because Buck Walton was the referee and Buck was never one to quibble over a bit of rough stuff. It had to be a deliberate butt-end, a cross check across the mouth or a twenty-foot charge before Buck would hand out a penalty. The clock said 20 seconds to go when Red stick handlers through the entire Central team and blazed a shoulder high shot past Bob Patton for the winning goal and the championship.

That was the same year that the Town League All-Stars took on the Intermediate
“A” team and beat then 6-5. Red had a pretty fair share in that victory. He scored three goals, including the winner. The year 1934 was a pretty good year for Red from a sports standpoint. After starring on the championship hockey team he helped the old Collingwood Grads win the Blue Mountain Softball League title. He pitched five games for the Grads that season and also played centre field shortstop when he wasn’t on the mound. His batting average was exactly .400, second highest in the league.

Red was not the fastest pitcher in Collingwood softball history but he had perfect
control. In the outfield he could go back deep for the long hits or come in fast to pick low liners of his shoe laces. He could throw strikes from centre field to the plate. When playing the infield he dug everything out of the dirt between second and third and could knock the first baseman down with that peg across the infield.

In the many years I watched him play hockey and softball, I never once heard him
dispute the decision of a referee or an umpire.

It was the same when he played for the Collingwood Collegiate.

A steady block of granite on the line in football, a tough guard on the basketball team and a steady point winner on the track and field team. Red Fawcett was a gentleman and a sportsman. Need we say more?  He died in 1972 at the age of sixty.

“Jeep” Jackson qualifies for the Hall of Fame in many sports including hockey, baseball and softball.

His playing career spans 30+ years that was highlighted by his championship run of eight (8) provincial championships throughout the 1940’s on the ice and ball diamonds

This evening in 1984 marks the induction of “Jeep” into the Collingwood Sports Hall of Fame.