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Burnaby South honours past sporting glory

For one year, a couple generations ago, Burnaby South Secondary was on top of the provincial sports mountain. The school won the 1953 boys’ basketball provincial championships.
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Joel Grigg, left, and Burnaby South Secondary athletic director Robbie Puni, right, hold a banner in December commemorating the school’s 1953 boys’ basketball provincial championship. The team’s accomplishments had gone unrecognized at the school until Grigg, whose father Raymond played on the championship team, brought it to the school’s attention.

For one year, a couple generations ago, Burnaby South Secondary was on top of the provincial sports mountain. The school won the 1953 boys’ basketball provincial championships.   

But for most of the students walking the halls at Burnaby South today, they had no clue of the school’s past sports glory. That was until December.

During the start of the school’s biggest basketball tourney last month, the 12th annual Rod Thomson Memorial tournament, a banner recognizing the 1953 team’s accomplishments was raised to the rafters.

“It’s a big day for us and our family getting that recognition,” said Joel Grigg, whose father Raymond played for the winning team.

And it was the younger Grigg who helped spearhead the effort to get team its rightful recognition.

Grigg, who played on the school’s only other senior boys’ basketball provincial championship team in 1979, explained a while back he asked the school’s athletic director Robbie Puni why there was no banner in the gym.

The 1953 basketball team was inducted into the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame a few years ago, but given no recognition on home court.

It was a good question that Puni had to look into. After checking with the B.C. Senior Boys’ Basketball Association and going through the record books, it was indeed confirmed the team was a winner in 1953.

That set in motion the work to get a banner in place.

Puni called the banner raising “huge” for the school, adding he’s a big believer in recognizing accomplishments, even if it’s 63 years in the making.

“It goes with our vision that we have, that we want to reconnect with our past,” he told the NOW.

Puni also hopes the banner provides the young athletes playing now with some motivation.

“I assume and I hope it means something big to them,” he said.

It’s certainly means something to Grigg and his family.

Both Raymond and Joel are the only father-and-son combo to win a championship at the same school in the 80 years of the tournament.

Grigg said his father, who passed away in 2005, would regale the family at the dinner table with stories from the championship year. As he tells it, the 1953 team won the final game by two points. But Grigg said without a banner, it felt as though the 1953 team’s accomplishments had been forgotten until now.

“My dad was contributing to that win, to that team, it was more of real proud moment,” he said.

Grigg also said his father and the 1953 championship was a motivating factor in his own team’s win in 1979.

“This was setting the pace, maybe it gives them (current players) the thought they want their teams to be on that rafter,” he said. “It did it for us.”