UTECK o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-05 published
Lawrence
(Larry)
C.
UTECK
By Graham FRASER
Thursday,
June 5, 2003 - Page A24
Director of athletics at Saint Mary's University, politician,
Canadian Football League all-star. Born October 9, 1952, in Toronto.
Died December 25, 2002, in Halifax, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, aged 50.
When Governor-General Adrienne
CLARKSON pinned the Order of Canada
on Larry UTECK's lapel in Halifax last October, there was a spontaneous
standing ovation. The man in the wheelchair, silenced and paralyzed
by disease, had won the city's heart.
Growing up in Thornhill and Willowdale, Ontario, Larry was part
Tom Sawyer, part Huck Finn: mischievous, competitive, and profoundly
resistant to being told what to do. He knew the joy and the pain
of being adored and betrayed.
He was a talented athlete, but an injured Achilles tendon ended
his hopes of playing hockey seriously. He went to the Jesuit
school Brébeuf Collegiate, but his prickly resistance to authority
resulted in the principal telling his mother every year to find
another school for him. Every year, she prevailed and Larry stayed.
He had a continuing affection for waifs and strays, the marginal
and the eccentric. He loved football, and played with reckless
intensity, but hated being defined as just an athlete.
Larry went to the University of Colorado on scholarship, but
insisted on taking East Asian Studies, and was furious when he
was told he couldn't study Chinese because it conflicted with
football practice.
He attended Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario,
for a year before being drafted by the Toronto Argonauts -- but
after his first season, travelled through still-war-torn Vietnam
and Cambodia, taking extraordinary risks, collecting amazing
stories and lifelong Friends.
Larry's career in the Canadian Football League was defined by
his physical courage. He was a punishing tackler -- it was unnerving
to see him straighten out his helmet afterwards, as if his neck
had been unhooked -- and a self-destructively determined punt
returner.
He paid the price. After five years in Toronto, he was traded
to Montreal (where his interception and touchdown took the Alouettes
to the Grey Cup in 1978), and then, as his body deteriorated,
to British Columbia and finally to Ottawa.
After his football career ended, it took him a while to acknowledge
how much he loved the game. In 1982, he was hired as an assistant
coach at Saint Mary's University and moved to Halifax, where
he fell in love first with the city, then with Sue
MALONEY (whom
he married in 1989), and their two children Luke and Cain.
He became head coach in 1983, taking the team to the Vanier Cup
three times. He saw a world beyond the football field; he was
as proud of David Sykes winning a Rhodes Scholarship as he was
of the players who went on to play professionally.
In 1994, he ran for Halifax City Council and was elected, and
in 1998 became deputy mayor. He was as hardworking and candid
as a politician as he was as a coach. In December 1997, Russell
McLELLAN, then Liberal premier of Nova Scotia, tried hard to
persuade him to be a candidate. Tempted, Larry said: "I just
can't."
He was already feeling the first symptoms of amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis; it was the beginning of a five-year decline and an
extraordinary demonstration of grace, wit and courage. As he
wrote his young daughter Cain, "I had a long, active, and productive
life as a caterpillar. Now I am more quiet and restful, kind
of like living in a cocoon. I don't know how or when or even
why, but when this stage is over I will be a butterfly. Won't
that be something, your Dad the butterfly."
At his instruction, the Bob Dylan song I Shall Be Released was
played at his memorial service at the Basilica in Halifax, where
1,500 people came to say goodbye.
Graham is Larry
UTECK's brother-in-law.
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