There's something about Squamish and football. The town has produced a surprisingly large number of celebrated football players over the past 50 years, and those successful athletes say they have GSL football to thank.
"Many of the thousands of GSL 'kids' still look back as that period of their life as full of excitement and promise," said GSL board member John Matsen.
And now dozens of young GSL players from North Vancouver to Pemberton will get a taste of that success during the Gordon Sturtridge League 50th anniversary of minor football at BC Place Stadium. On Oct. 1, the league will hold mini-football games during the BC Lions' game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders' at halftime. The game is anticipated to draw 30,000 spectators.
It all began when the B.C. Lions began playing professional football in Vancouver in 1954. Kids all over the North Shore began emulating their new heroes by playing tackle football, but without protective equipment and on unsafe lots. Concerned parents formed the North Shore Canadian Football Club, which began its inaugural 1955 season with four teams of 12- to 15-year-olds.
In 1957 the league changed its name to the Gordon Sturtridge League in honour of all-star Saskatchewan Roughriders player Gordon Sturtridge, who died in a 1956 plane crash returning from the annual All-Star Game at Empire Stadium.
In 1958, with the opening of the Sea to Sky Highway, GSL president Harvey Sedgwick picked up two hitchhikers from Squamish named Lynn Hendrickson and Ricky Hunter and quickly recruited them to play for his team. The boys hitchhiked and even hopped freight trains to get to practices and games. Southpaw Hendrickson became an outstanding quarterback in the GSL and his moniker soon became "Lefty" Hendrickson. Lefty earned a football scholarship to the University of Oregon and went on to a great career with the B.C. Lions as a tight end.
These first two Squamish players did so well at football that the league was encouraged to add Squamish into the GSL in 1960. The first two years in the GSL the Squamish team, under the coaching of Len Marchant, went undefeated, except in the two championship games.
Over the years, numerous GSL players went on to win football scholarships to U.S. universities. Many of these players went on to careers in professional football.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the GSL, all players, coaches, managers and fans from the past 50 years are invited to the B.C. Place Banquet Hall on Oct. 1 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. to "feast and swap stories of wins and losses past," according to the invitation.
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