All his life, the late Denny Veitch managed to thrive despite facing seemingly impossible odds from a very young age.
On Thursday it was announced that Veitch, who passed away from Alzheimer's disease in 2011 at the age of 80, will be inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in the builder's category for his lifetime's worth of contributions to soccer, rugby and football at both the professional and amateur levels.
The longtime North Vancouver resident was general manager of the BC Lions from 1967 to 1970 and then went on to become co-founder of the Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club and the team's first general manager, holding that post from 1973 to 1977. He's also credited with coming up with the team's name, the word Whitecaps springing to his mind one day as he drove over the Lions Gate Bridge and saw foaming waves below and snow-capped mountains above. On top of the sporting accolades and achievements that have him headed to the Hall of Fame, he was, above all, a family man, according to his daughter Deanne Lenarduzzi. "He raised us family first," she said. "My mom died very, very young. She was only 45 and so he had to continue raising a family after that." Following the death of his wife, Veitch raised Deanne, her brother Danny and sister Karen on his own. "He was the ultimate parent," says Lenarduzzi, who met her husband, a fellow named Bobby, through her father's soccer connections. Deanne describes her father as a lifelong athlete as well as a survivor with a difficult past.
She was six years old when she finally realized her father had only one arm.
"He was a very young child when he lost his arm," she said. "To be normal, to be able to be like everybody else way back in those days, was what drove him."
As a young boy Veitch lived near the train tracks in Kitsilano with four siblings, and they'd often hop on the boxcars to get around. One day, when he was six years old, his brothers and friends challenged him to hop on the train with them.
"Him being such a little athlete right out of the gates, any challenge — he was up for it," she noted.
However, at the time Veitch's mother was very sick and at the last second he thought he heard her calling for him — so he jumped off the train. When he fell, the moving train ran over his arm, severing it from his body.
"He just decided that's what was handed to him and it was tough times anyway as a kid," she said. "He just lived life and played it out as hard as he could. He was the ultimate competitor, he thrived on competition."
His mother died a few years later and at age 12 he wound up living in a boarding house. Veitch started working at a bakery before school to pay for the boarding house.
"His outlet was sports," Lenarduzzi noted. "My father was involved with sports his whole life. . . . There was no handicap with him."
Lacking a limb didn't stop Veitch from making a name for himself on the football field — as a receiver, no less — as well as on the rugby pitch where he earned a reputation as a fierce tackler and represented Canada internationally.
It also didn't hinder his ability to encourage his own children to take part in an active lifestyle, according to Lenarduzzi. "He taught us how to ski, water ski, swim. He taught me how to use a stick shift."
Veitch's family-first policy was what had him pull back from the Whitecaps just two years before their first major victory because he wanted to take care of his wife when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1977. "He pulled back actually because he had three kids and he was trying to figure out how he was going to carry on," Lenarduzzi added.
Veitch spent his life dedicated to professional and amateur sports organizations, including Rugby Canada and the Rick Hansen Foundation. But one day during a tennis match with old buddies he took a fall and fell ill. It led to several strokes causing memory loss, which led to a misdiagnosis, his daughter recalls. It wasn't until his memory loss worsened that the doctors caught on. For the last six years of his life, Lenarduzzi said it was hard watching her father struggle with Alzheimer's because he was always used to overcoming obstacles in his life.
"It was a hard way for him to finish his years because he never let anything take him down before," she said. "But he did fight it for sure. He was an impressive guy. He was bigger than life.
"That's how I choose to remember him as that big personality that I grew up with and taught me how to make sure you don't take no for an answer."
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There will be a distinct North Shore flavour to the 2015 B.C. Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony as Veitch will be joined on the slate by two other honourees with strong local ties.
North Vancouver native Paul Kariya will be inducted in recognition of his stellar hockey career in the NHL and with Team Canada. Kariya, who retired from the NHL in 2010 after 15 seasons, will go down as one of the greatest B.C.-born players in league history. He scored 989 points in 989 regular season games, including 402 goals, was named a first-team league all-star three times and a second-team all-star twice. He was also twice named the winner of the Lady Byng Trophy for gentlemanly conduct and sportsmanship.
Kariya played for Canada in two Olympic Games, winning silver in 1994 and gold in 2002. The smooth skating forward is already in the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame as a member of that 2002 Olympic team that included other provincial links such as Eric Brewer, Scott Niedermayer, Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman and recently deceased West Vancouver resident Pat Quinn who was the team's head coach.
The other North Shore link headed to the Hall is longtime North Shore Twins head coach John Haar. The Vancouver native has earned countless honours as a baseball coach, having launched the careers of several B.C.-born major leaguers. He served as Canada's manager at the 1986 World Cup held in Cuba and helped the team qualify for the 1988 Olympic Games.
Haar was named Baseball Canada's coach of the year in 1991, the International Baseball Federation's top coach in 1992, and was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007.
He coached the Twins to three straight B.C. Premier Baseball League titles from 2007 to 2009. The 71-year-old is still the head coach of the premier Twins, having guided them to a second-place finish in the BCPBL this summer.
- with files from Andy Prest
