For Jim Georgiadis, the path always led to Leaside High School.
While growing up on Donlea Drive, it was his destination from Northlea Elementary and Middle School, following in the footsteps of big brother, John, and paving the way for kid brothers Peter and George. After graduating in 1987, the former quarterback of the Lancers football team wanted to volunteer as a coach and do so at Leaside while studying economics at York University’s Glendon College on Bayview.
Once he chose a career in education and completed a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction at the University of Loyola in Chicago, where he taught at inner city schools, Georgiadis returned home.
“There were seven different school boards in Toronto at the time and I was applying to all of them for a job as a supply teacher,” he recalls. “One day I was driving east down Eglinton Ave. from an interview, and I saw Leaside High School in the distance and thought, ‘why don’t I just go in?’”
A chat that day with Dale Lyons, then-vice-principal at Leaside, secured a spot as a supply teacher. Soon, it was full-time in economics and phys-ed, and coach of a football team that went winless in his first season.
Now, 30 years later, Georgiadis, known affectionately as “Coach G,” is set to retire at the end of June. And, he’s going out on top, coaching the Lancers football team to an undefeated season, the TDSSAA city championship, the fourth of his teaching career, and capping it off with a Toronto Bowl title.
His departure coincides with the graduation of Paul, the younger of his two children.
“I didn’t plan it that way. It just worked out that way,” he says. “But to have the opportunity to coach my son, especially in my last year and as he graduates with his friends, is very special.
“It’s the right time for me to go.”
Best known as the Leaside High football coach, Georgiadis has done much more over the years. He’s also coached teams in baseball, hockey, golf and basketball. In addition to teaching, he is co-advisor of the DECA Business Club at the school.
“He is the most influential coach in the history of this high school,” says Jim Wilson, a member of the Leaside High class of 1962, a football and hockey player as a student and an assistant football coach to Georgiadis since 2011. “I’ve never met anyone more dedicated or a better example for young people to follow than Jim, and I say that from the bottom of my heart.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Matthew Morrison, who graduated from Leaside High in 2011, after playing football all four years and winning a junior city championship in Grade 10. A realtor in the neighbourhood, the former defensive back is an assistant coach on the team, crediting Georgiadis with “inspiring me to come and give back because of everything he’s given to the school.
“At any given time, between his classes, his business club and his coaching, Jim is positively impacting and influencing about a quarter of the kids at the school, which is unfathomable for one teacher.”
Angela Brown, a teacher at Leaside since 2018 who has coached the golf and hockey teams with Georgiadis, says, “he has a great ability to explain technical aspects of the game to students.
“Watching him coach, I appreciate how calm and patient he is. He is thoughtful in his responses to athletes and parents and has been a great mentor to other coaches.”
Zack MacMillan, a Grade 12 student who has played both golf and hockey for Georgiadis and also been in his classes over the years, says “his style of coaching made school sports feel more competitive and fun.
“On top of all this, he was also a great teacher. Seeing his name in my schedule at the start of a semester was a huge bonus because I knew I was getting a teacher who really understood me.”
Gabe Burnett, a Grade 12 student who has played on the football, hockey and golf teams for Georgiadis and is in his economics class this semester, called him “a role model of a coach and a teacher.
“He’s very good at talking to kids if they’re struggling in school or in sports and figuring out the best scenario for them to improve,” Burnett says. “And he gives some of the greatest speeches I’ve ever heard — he always knows what to say for the situation and shows how passionate he is.”
For his part, Georgiadis says while the energy has waned, the passion remains. And the pride, which is measured not in wins but by the number of children of high school buddies he teaches and coaches, the past students who drop by with updates on their lives, and the past players who visit the practice field.
“Students are at the centre of everything we do,” he says. “And athletics complements the classroom in that we’re teaching kids to understand they represent their school, their community and each other, and that they have to have respect for themselves and their opponents, and for the game. “When I see that in them, that’s when I know how fortunate I’ve been to be here.”