By Yvonne Zacharias, Vancouver Sun

 

VANCOUVER — In the dugout and on and off the softball field, his sunny smile and genial laugh will never be forgotten.

Although he isn’t a household name in the world of sports, there is probably no one who has done more for senior women’s softball in Canada than Adrian Lavigne, who died Jan. 17, one day short of his 76th birthday.

By putting together a fabulous club team based largely in New Westminster starting in the mid 1960s, he managed to win 11 Canadian championships, 20 B.C. championships and a silver medal at the world championships in El Salvador in 1978 with a team called the Doc’s Blues.

“He was a legend before there were legends in the game,” said Mike Renney, head coach of the women’s softball team at SFU. “There are very few who would measure up in terms of his contribution to women’s softball.”

Lavigne was born in Meota, Sask., and moved to New Westminster when he was five years old.

He got the coaching bug through his first wife who was playing on a struggling office team. She asked Adrian to help. He took her team from the bottom of the league to the top in one season. That was it. He was hooked.

In those days, Canadian women’s teams hardly ever travelled. “He took teams around the world when it was unheard of,” said Renney.

He dug deep within his own pockets to do so, taking time off from his job at Lavigne’s Engine Rebuilders on Kingsway, a business started by his father and continued by him and his brother Louis.

His silver medal victory with the Doc’s Blues in 1978 was a milestone. That was a year before a Canadian national women’s team was put in place. It wasn’t until 2010 that the Canadian national team brought home another medal from the world’s.

Lavigne never saw it as the pinnacle. A fierce competitor, he wanted the gold.

Renney, who coached with Lavigne on a team called Alpha Sports, said “the guy was a brilliant strategist” who had an unbelievable memory for all kinds of game situations.

“It’s quite an accomplishment to win one Canadian championship but to actually win 11, I don’t think anyone will ever be able to come close to matching that,” said Heather Bee, executive director of Softball B.C. “The best players in Canada wanted to play for him.”

Joanne Mick, who was a catcher for Lavigne for almost 15 years, recalled how she and pitcher Rosemary Fuller were playing on a Victoria team that struck out 12 of Lavigne’s players.

That’s all Lavigne needed to come courting them.

They joined his team in 1974 and travelled all over the world with it. The team had three different names, depending on sponsors, and a revolving roster of players but Mick said they it really just one team, Lavigne’s team.

“He somehow attracted everything that needed to go in place to make things happen,” recalled Mick. “He saw things that needed to be done. He saw places to go. He had the dreams. He had the passion.”

He had other prerequisites — business savvy, connections to sponsors and focus. Even in the off season, “I can’t ever remember him losing focus,” said Mick.

She doesn’t know how he talked Vancouver businessmen into ponying up for a women’s softball team at a time when women’s sports were hardly on the radar, but he managed it.

All of this passion for the game detracted from another passion in his life.

Gloria Martin, his partner for the past 10 years, first met him in 1966. “He was my first love. He pretty much dumped me, although he always hated me saying that, to pursue his ball career. We kind of parted ways because he wasn’t about to settle down. He travelled with the team all the time.”

She married someone else and remained with that man until his death 30 years later. Then she and Lavigne ran into each other at a mutual friend’s party. The romance was back on.

She described her partner as “a gentle soul but a winner. He liked to win.”

He was also an athlete and sports fan to the core, dabbling in stock car driving, boxing and senior men’s hockey. In later years, he developed a passion for golfing.

“I miss him so much,” said Martin, her voice breaking up.

Bee concluded, “It’s a very sad day for softball. He will be missed.”

An open house celebration of his life will take place, Sat., Jan. 29, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Extra Innings Sports Grill in Softball City at 2201 128th St. in Surrey.