Lalji has become one of Canada’s foremost football experts, on many levels, as well as being a community builder for the sport in the province. He moved to the city with his family when he was six.

Lalji played football for Burnaby Central and after graduating in 1986 he helped coach the team from 1987 to 2000. He did a stint as Simon Fraser University’s sports information director in the early 1990s before becoming a sports reporter for CBC Vancouver from 1995 to 1997.

He joined TSN as a regional reporter in 1997 and while he cover the regional sports for the network he as become one of TSN’s football experts. Lalji has covered 22 Grey Cups, 16 Super Bowls and 12 NCAA championships. He is frequently seen on the sidelines of CFL games as a reporter for TSN and occasionally is in the booth as a play-by-play announcer as well as anchoring TSN’s coverage of the annual CFL Canadian college draft.

His in-depth knowledge of football at all levels — professional, collegiate and even high school — is not only on display on TSN throughout the year but also as a frequent expert commentator for many broadcast and podcast outlets on both sides of the border.

In addition to reporting extensively on the Vancouver Canucks, Lalji has covered Stanley Cup finals, NBA finals, MLB and NBA all-star games, the U.S. Open and PGA golf championships and three Olympic Games.

His community contributions have also earned him a place in the BC Football Hall of Fame. In 2003, Lalji revived the dormant football program at New Westminster Secondary School, not only serving as its head coach but also cultivating sponsorships for the program to make it thrive and helping many of its players obtain post-secondary scholarships. The football hall said “there are few individuals who have had as profound an impact on the growth of high school football in BC than Farhan Lalji.”

His efforts in growing sponsorship for the organization included obtaining sponsorship from Subway for the provincial championship games to be held in BC Place and to appear on television from 2002 to 2012.

Lalji pioneered the provincial high school football all-star awards dinner and annual all-star games and went on to serve as BC High School Football president from 2010 to 2012. During that sting one of his major accomplishments was developing a safety policy around concussion prevention for the BCHSF.

Sean Fleming, born and raised in Burnaby, spent 16 seasons in the CFL kicking for the Edmonton Eskimos. He set club records for points (2,571), field goals (553), converts (713), punts (1,264), punt yardage (52,957) and kickoff yardage (69,973).

Fleming, who attended Parkcrest Elementary and played soccer for Cliff Avenue United and baseball for the Burnaby Baseball Association, played in five Grey Cups, winning three, and was named the 1983 Grey Cup’s Most Valuable Canadian. He kicked the game-winning field goal in overtime in the 1995 Grey Cup.

He’s a four-time West Division all-star and two-time CFL all-star.
After graduating highs school from Vancouver College, Fleming went to the University of Wyoming where he still holds almost every Cowboys place-kicking record including scoring 324 points in his four years there.

As a pro, he had brief stints in the NFL with Washington and Kansas City before joining Edmonton, who selected him sixth overall in the 1992 CFL draft. He was inducted into the team’s Wall of Honour in 2011.

Lui Passaglia’s formative football years growing up and maturing into a professional were spent while residing in North Burnaby. His legendary gridiron exploits led him to induction into the BC Lions Wall of Fame, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the BC Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and now the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame.

Lui’s family moved to Burnaby in 1968 when he was 14 years old and attended Notre Dame High School where he started playing football with the Jugglers juggernaut coached by Al Blesch and George Oswald (a 2012 Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame inductee). Passaglia helped lead Notre Dame to three provincial championships (1968, 1970, 1971) playing quarterback, safety, punter and place kicker.

After graduation he headed up Burnaby Mountain to play for Simon Fraser University where he played wide receiver along with his kicking duties. He also played on SFU’s soccer team. Passaglia’s pigskin exploits caught the eye of the local Canadian Football League team and the BC Lions chose him fifth overall in the 1976 CFL draft. He remained living at home in Burnaby during his first four seasons with the Leos. He even caught a 10-yard touchdown pass in his first CFL game, July 22, 1976 against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Lui went on to play 25 seasons in the CFL, all with the Lions. No one has played more CFL games than Passaglia’s 408, and no one has scored more points, 3,991, than Passaglia. He also holds CFL career records for most converts, 1,045 (he only missed three in his career), most field goals, 875, and best single season field goal percentage, 90.9 per cent in 2000 his final season. He is second all-time in punting, behind only Winnipeg’s Bob Cameron, with 3,142 punts for 133,826 yards. Passaglia also holds the CFL record for most points in a season, 210, and is tied for most field goals in a season with 48. Passaglia was a CFL Western Division all-star nine times and a CFL all-star four times.

Most importantly, he was a member of three Grey Cup championships for the Lions (1985, 1994 and 2000). Passaglia retired after kicking the winning points in the Lions’ 28-26 victory over the Montreal Alouettes in the 2000 Grey Cup. He also kicked the winning field goal on the last play of the 1994 Grey Cup when BC beat Baltimore 26-23 at BC Place. In 2007, the Lions named that kick the greatest play in the club’s history.

Dario Ciccone
Sport – Football
School – St. Thomas More

Luca Bellini
Sport – Football
School – St. Thomas More.

Nico Repole
Sport – Football,
School – St. Thomas More

Reynaldo Morales:
Sport – Football.
School – St. Thomas More

During Darrell Hall’s nearly 20-year tenure (1987-2006) as head coach, he led the St. Thomas More Collegiate Knights to eleven Grade 8 provincial high school football titles, including an unprecedented nine consecutive crowns between 1998 and 2006.

During one stretch between 1996 and 2006, with coaching cohort Ron Crosato beside him on the sidelines, Hall’s Knights were were almost unbeatable racking up a ridiculous record of 96 wins and three losses.

Although he’s no longer a head coach, it’s hard to keep Hall away from the gridiron. He still helps out with all levels of STM’s prestigious pigskin program that has spawned the likes of CFL players Jon Cornish, Calvin McCarty and Keynan Parker, to name a few.

George Oswald has been described by many as the greatest coach in the history of BC high school sports. His record certainly proves it.

Over a 46-year coaching career as an assistant and head coach at Notre Dame Secondary, Oswald led his Jugglers teams to 14 Provincial championships, six as an assistant and eight as the head man.

Over a 13-year span from 1977-89, as head coach he led the Jugglers to nine championship finals where he lost just twice. During his coaching career, Oswald’s program produced former BC Lions stalwarts Lui Passaglia and Glenn Jackson and a host of others who went on to football prominence.

He has served on the BC High School Football Association Board for more than 25 years, three years as President, and has been named an Honorary Life Member of BC High School Football.

Lorne Davies was Simon Fraser University’s first athletic director and credited with designing, implementing and overseeing Canada’s first financially supported awards program for scholar athletes. Davies was a pioneer in changing how Canadian post-secondary institutions operated in order to keep university athletes in Canada.

He established the first national sports training centres in Canada for soccer, wrestling and track and field. He also established the first women’s varsity softball program in Canada. As well, Davies was the first to offer women athletes top coaching, equipment and scholarships. He hired full-time coaches in all varsity sports and appointed and trained Canada’s first university sports information officer and marketing manager.

Davies sat on the Terry Fox Humanitarian Award board for 20 years and the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame for 30 years, as well as many other volunteer committees. Davies was awarded the Order of British Columbia in 2000. He was named administrator of the year in 1989 by the NAIA and awarded the Premiers award for contribution to sport in 1994.

He was inducted into the SFU Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Western Washington University Hall of Fame in 1995. Davies even has a Grey Cup ring, won in 1964 as an assistant coach with the B.C. Lions.