Darthe Capellan
Sport – wrestling
School – St.Thomas More

Julia Hodanic
Sport – Basketball
School – Burnaby Mountain

Back: Bill Bayley (coach), Hilda Higham, Elsie Thornton, Doris Elliot,Inez Brown, Bill Fowler (manager)
Middle: Elsie Brown, Joan Bullock, Edna Winter, Phyllis Bayley, Betty Elliott, Edie Gilmore, Margaret Robertson, Laura Brown.
Front: Dolly Atkinson, Doris MacLean, Florence Brown, Bernice MacMillan, Dot Spring, Kay MacMillan, Alice Would, Audrey Elliott (mascot).

Emilio (Mimmo) Marrello’s boys soccer squads won six provincial titles and went to the national championships four times winning twice. His 2006 Burnaby Royals were inducted into the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

Marrello was named B.C. youth coach of the year in 2002. Several of Marrello’s charges have made national youth teams with five of them going on to play professional soccer. His Burnaby Girls Titans squad which he coached for three years also won two provincial titles and went to two national finals where they took the sliver medal.

Marrello’s coaching exploits aren’t limited to the soccer pitch but the wrestling mat as well coaching many provincial and national champions including Tom Petryshen, who wrestled in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and John Tenta, a world junior champion in 1985.

Kyna Fletcher began coaching gymnastics 30 years ago. Her passion for the sport resulted in her being named the national stream coach of the year in 2006, which goes to the coach who has had the most success with its national level gymnasts.

Fletcher received Gymnastics BC’s Member of Distinction award in 2010 and the organization also presented her with a life member award in 2013.

She was also the team director for Canada’s gymnastic team that finished fifth at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Fletcher was also a coach for Canada at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Along with coaching at various Lower Mainland clubs, Fletcher has worked as a national team director for Gymnastics Canada and served on its board of directors.

Dan Taylor was named commissioner of the Lower Mainland Baseball Association when the adult recreational baseball league was formed in 1994 and he held the position for nearly 30 years. Under his leadership, the LMBA evolved into the largest adult baseball league in Canada with 32 teams in 14 municipalities.

The league has players ranging in age from 19 to over 70. Taylor managed the BC Capitals, which won the Canadian 50-plus title at the Canadian National Oldtimers Baseball Federation championships in 2008 and 2010.

He was the tournament chair of the 2010 championship held in Burnaby and New Westminster which attracted 24 teams from across Canada.

Taylor received Sport BC’s President’s Award in 2012.

After a highly successful playing careers on the soccer pitch and baseball diamond, Roy Nosella turned his attention to giving back to sport.

The long-time Burnaby school counsellor was a BC Soccer director and vice-chair for seven years, and a director of the Vancouver Metro Soccer League for seven years. He refereed in the Metro Women’s Soccer League where he developed and implemented a mentorship program.

His efforts were recognized when he received the A.C. Sanford Award for more than 20 years of exceptional service to B.C. soccer. Nosella was a director of Soccer BC for nine years, including three as vice chair, helping with the merger of BC Soccer and BC Youth Soccer. He received the BC Soccer Award of Merit in 1996.

In addition, Nosella served on the Vancouver Athletic Commission for 43 years including a stint as its chair.

Nosella passed away in January 2022. He was 81.

Anna Schnell was an elite player on an elite Burnaby Lake Rugby Club squad. In her six seasons (2004-2010), Schnell was a dominating force as Burnaby Lake won three provincial championships.

She also led B.C. to its first Canadian championship in eight years in 2005. Schnell has played more than 30 times for Canada including the 2006 and 2010 World Cups. In fact, she was the second highest scorer in the 2010 tournament in England with 46 points losing out on the scoring title by only two points.

Burnaby lacrosse icon Russ Heard was a scoring machine for the Burnaby Lakers. He was the Western Lacrosse Association scoring champion in 1992, 1997 and 1999 and a first-team league all-star five times. Heard racked up 1,201 points, including 447 goals, in the 399 games he played which at the time was ninth all-time in the WLA. Heard also played in the National Lacrosse League for the now defunct Charlotte Cobras for one season and the Toronto Rock for three.

Heard’s No. 9 was the first jersey retired by the Lakers in 2013. But in 2016, six years after he retired, he was an assistant coach with the Sr. ’Bellies when a player shortage forced head coach Steve Goodwin to ask the 52-year-old to don a uniform once again. He picked an assist in an 11-9 loss in Victoria in what was his 400th Western Lacrosse Association game.

Heard coached the senior Lakers for seven seasons making the playoffs each time. He has also coached the Burnaby Jr. Lakers, the New Westminster Salmonbellies, the Jr. Salmonbellies. Heard has served as the offensive coordinator for the Colorado Mammoth of the NLL and a head coach in the Arena Lacrosse League.

He was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2016.

Cowie is a visually impaired athlete who participated in nine para-cycling world championships as a road and track cyclist. He won 14 national championships and snagged a silver medal in the 1998 world championships in the individual time trial.

Cowie was ranked No. 1 in the world on the track in 2009 and won a bronze at the world championships that year. In addition to cycling, Cowie has competed in 15 Ironman triathlons, including three world championships. And he’s done more than 100 short course Olympic distance triathlons, winning silver at two ITU championships.