Jim Wilson, a Canadian hockey and baseball champion, played and worked around the world – Quebec, the Maritimes, Europe and the States – but his passion for place brought him home to Leaside. Born on Beaufield Avenue, raised on Divadale Drive, Jim graduated from Leaside High School in 1962. Luckily for Leaside he ended up where it all began, settling on Hanna Road to raise his family and give back to the community that gave him so much.
Jim’s final year at the University of Toronto culminated in the best way possible for someone who had spent countless hours playing all manner of sports. The Varsity Blues men’s hockey team – Jim played defence – made history when it won the inaugural Canadian Intercollegiate Championship in the spring of 1966 in Sudbury where they beat a team from Alberta, 8 to 1. Jim remembers that “there was a real camaraderie among team members, especially with fellow Leasiders ‘Gil’ Farmer and Bob McClelland.” That same team, which became Canadian champions in 1966, was inducted in the U of T’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2005, the first hockey team ever to do so.
Jim wasn’t just a Canadian champion on the ice, though; he shone as well on the baseball diamond. He was the All-Star catcher for Ontario’s Canadian National Junior Championship Baseball Team in 1964. In 1968 Jim was the All-Star catcher for the undefeated Leaside Maple Leafs in their inaugural season in the Halton County Sr. Baseball League. One of his coaches was beloved Leasider Howie Birnie, who was inducted in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2024.
Jim was also the Intercounty Senior League’s Ontario Representative in the Pan-American Games Trials.
At 22 Jim took a teaching job at Cedarbrae Collegiate Institute, which at the time had one of the highest student populations in the country. Teaching phys. ed. and coaching many of their sports teams, Jim soon realized that he enjoyed coaching as much as he liked playing sports. He accepted an offer to coach hockey in Italy in the European Elite division. Later he worked in private industry, which took him to places like Beaconsfield, Quebec and Bedford, Nova Scotia, but he always found time to coach, especially in the local minor hockey and baseball associations. After being transferred to the company’s American head office in Indiana he continued coaching there as well as in North Carolina and Illinois.
Jim explains that wherever he coached he would follow the “Leaside model” – parents stepping up and devoting time and energy to organizing and supervising fledgling leagues. While he is recognized as a multi-talented athlete, he humbly refers to himself as “a beneficiary.”
“I was very fortunate to have been raised in Leaside in the ’50s and ’60s; everywhere there was an opportunity to play a sport and hone skills, coached by caring and conscientious parent volunteers. I recall that in the summer every school yard had a male and female playground leader hired by the Leaside Parks and Recreation Department. They worked Monday to Friday from 9 to 5, and this had a positive impact on hundreds of kids.” That same spirit of offering Leaside youth athletic opportunities carried over into the winter months when park staff would flood and maintain natural ice rinks. “In the summer of ’65 I was hired to work at Trace Manes Park, which was a great opportunity to give back.”
A memory that stands out was when, in August 1956 at the CNE, Jim caught the ceremonial opening pitch thrown by Cleveland Indians’ Bob Feller, a guest at the event and one of the fastest pitchers in Major League history. When he got to Leaside High Jim especially enjoyed playing on the school football team.
To this day he is still invested in football at LHS, now as a coach. Since 2011 he has been assisting teacher Jim Georgiadis with the senior Lancers; this school year the team won the Toronto Varsity and Metro Bowl championships. He recalls that he learned skills and strategy but also a sense of fair play during his childhood in Leaside, a place he calls “a little town that just happens to be in the middle of a big city.” He instills these same moves and morals in young Leaside athletes today. Max Lecaillon, a linebacker on the winning team, describes Jim as “a straight talking, honest father figure who kept us in line and taught us life lessons. Skills he teaches on the football field are transferable to everyday life.”
Jim may see himself as a “beneficiary,” but it’s Leaside that has benefited the most from his wisdom and winning ways.
