Robert Couzens:
Sport – Boxing.
School – Burnaby North

Manny Sobral founded the North Burnaby Boxing Club with a partner in march 2004. Since then the club has grown to 125 members and has won more than 20 championships including bronze, silver and golden gloves, Alberta golden gloves, Tacoma golden gloves, BC Provincial Championships and Canadian National Championships. He is also the coach of our scholarship recipient Robert Couzens, as stated a three time national champion.

Manny has also taught in the Burnaby school system, and in 2007 was named BC’s boxing coach of the year.

His background in coaching comes from experience. He was a three time Canadian amateur champion, competed at the 1988 Olympics and as a professional, compiled a 29 win, 2 loss record as Canadian super welterweight and IBO world super weight championship.

Burnaby’s ‘Boxing Mountie’, Harry Twist, staged a one-man war against juvenile delinquency over his long career as coach of the South Burnaby Boxing Club.

A talented coach and friend of the young, Twist trained scores of young men, including the late, former Commonwealth Games bantamweight Frankie Scott, two-time Emerald boy finalist Freddy Fuller, silver boy and Olympic hopeful Johnny Phillips and 1954 Canadian welterweight champion Des Archer, who later joined the RCMP.

Twist operated his boxing gym for more than 30 years in a former church on Kingsway, between Nelson and Royal Oak. He also held boxing shows in Central Park, where the baseball diamond now stands. In the winter, he held shows in the gym at Burnaby South senior secondary.

Al Principe is the founding member and President of Swangard Stadium Society, spearheading a campaign that raised more than $3 million for installation of bleachers, are furbished track surface and other improvements.

President and GM Westburn Soccer Club for 22 years. Founding director of professional Vancouver 86ers soccer club. Founding director Kensington Soccer Society and has acted as President from 1994 to present. Named Burnaby’s Sports Builder of the Year in 1992.

How about this for a record: 80 wins, 13 losses. That’s the boxing record of our athlete inductee, Des Archer. Coached by Hall of Fame member, the late Harry Twist,

Des began boxing at age 13 across from the old Burnaby Oak Theatre. He would go on to win Diamond Boy, Provincial, bronze, silver and Golden Gloves titles both here and throughout the pacific northwest. In 1953 he won his weight class at the Canadian Championships.

Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Des joined the RCMP in 1953 but continued to box on amateur cards and continued to win titles as well as coach. He retired from both in 1964.

Valentine James Roche was a Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame inductee who was considered the father of lacrosse in North Burnaby. After the Second World War, the British born editor of the Burnaby Advertiser newspaper found sponsors, coaches and managers for the sport. But his contributions weren’t limited to lacrosse.

Roche was also a life member of the B.C. Junior and Juvenile Soccer Association, which he helped found. For more than 30 years, he either coached or managed teams. In addition, Roche was instrumental in forming and administering the Silver, Bronze and Emerald Glove junior boxing tournaments.

Roche made such an impact, renowned Vancouver Sun columnist Dick Beddoes, even though he was in Seattle to interview legendary baseball manager Leo Durocher at the time, wrote a column about Roche after his death in 1958 calling Roche “a major leaguer in minor athletics.”

Len Walters won the Canadian open bantamweight championship in 1949 and 1952. He amassed an amateur record of 139-10 and a pro record of 14-4 in a 13-year boxing career. Walters won four B.C. senior and two national titles, while also capturing the U.S. featherweight title in 1951, only the third Canadian to do so.

He competed for Canada at the Commonwealth and Olympic Games in the 1950s. He is the father of fellow Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame honoured member Dale Walters. They were both inducted in 2003.

During Dale Walters’ 15-year amateur career he was never beaten by a Canadian boxer. Further, he never lost an amateur bout (including international competitions) on Canadian soil. The five-time national champion had a career record of 165 wins and 12 losses and was selected most outstanding boxer at three national championships.

Walters won a bronze medal as a bantamweight at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984. It was Canada’s first Olympic boxing medal in 52 years. Walters then fought professionally and finished his career with a record of seven wins and one loss. He was inducted into the Canadian Boxing Hall of Fame in 1996 and the BC Sports Hall of Fame in 2006. https://bcsportshall.com/honoured_member/dale-walters/

He also worked as a boxing analyst for television and radio broadcasts throughout his career.