Most parents cringe at the thought of their kids growing up to be rebels. Not in the Glover and Cormack families. It’s almost mandatory they become Rebels.
Burnaby South Rebels, that is. For Calli and Laini Glover it was in their DNA.
Some 14 years ago, their father Steve Glover coached South’s boys basketball team that included his nephew Cody Cormack. Glover had played basketball for South graduating in 1978. Candi Cormack, now his wife, graduated in 1981. While Steve coached, Laini would crawl around a playpen between the stands. Calli played on the gym floor beside her.
“We loved sports, so it’s kind of hard to get away from,” said Candi. “Other people called them our gym rats because I’d drop them off at the practice and go do something and come back and pick them up. All the boys looked after them.”
Last month, Calli was named South’s Grade 12 athlete of the year. Laini took the Grade 9 honours. It continued the family sports lineage at Burnaby South that dates back to Candi’s mother, Mary Cormack, and Steve’s mom Shirley attending the school.
Steve played basketball and track at South graduating in 1978. Although he went to Lakeview Elementary and Edmonds Junior High, he went to South instead of Burnaby Central because of its strong basketball team. (Steve says it still hurts Burnaby South won the provincial high school hoop title in 1979, a year after he graduated and he was already playing for Langara College.)
Candi played on the basketball, volleyball and field hockey teams. Her older brothers, Brent and Randy (Cody’s father, who passed away last year at the age of 62) played on South varsity squads as well.
“My mom (Mary Cormack) has dementia, but she still tells them stories about their high school, and what fundraisers they’d do for the war, and all that stuff,” said Candi, a provincial government occupational nurse.
She and Steve looked for a house better than the South Slope one Candi grew up in, but couldn’t find it. Her father, Larry, one of the founders of the South Burnaby Men’s Club (now South Burnaby Metro Club) was having health problems, so they promised to build a basement suite for him if they bought the house. The deal was done, cementing South’s presence in their family for another generation.
Although Candi and Steve had their daughters dabble in drama, singing, arts and crafts, and other non-sport activities, it always came back to sports. A lot of sports, often coaching them along the way.
Calli played basketball, volleyball, track and field at South, softball and netball in the community, and was a member of the school’s dragon boat club.
Laini does basketball, volleyball, javelin and cross country at school, and community softball, volleyball and swimming. Both are getting their lifeguard certification. Calli played netball at the B.C. Winter Games. Laini went to the B.C. Summer Games for basketball.
“I like the connection. I don’t know if I’d want to be at a school where my family was anonymous,” said Calli during a family interview with the NOW in Burnaby South athletic director Robbie Puni’s office.
“I think it was tougher on them having their parents coach them,” said Candi.
“Yes,” emphatically agreed her husband, a teacher at Richmond’s R.C. Palmer secondary.
The kids didn’t argue with their parents on that point.
“You get coached at school and then you get coached at home too,” Calli piped up. “My dad, he’s always coaching. Always.”
When Laini showed up for Grade 8 it just felt right.
“She,” says Laini nodding at Calli, “was so involved in the school that it’s natural coming into the program. It felt right at home.”
Calli has run the school’s Best Buddies Club, which works with students with development disabilities such as Down syndrome and autism during the noon hour on Tuesdays. Now that she’s leaving, Laini’s taking over. Both have made the honour roll every year they’ve been there.
“I sometimes worry about them being so busy, but they seem to be able to organize themselves,” said Candi, who keeps a weekly spreadsheet of their activities. “I can only go week-by-week.”
“The schedule is unbelievable,” said Steve.
There have been nights Calli would go from basketball practice to volleyball practice to winter softball practice. That type of scheduling meant Candi spent a lot of her weekends cooking big meals and saving the leftovers for eating in the car between weeknight practices or games.
“It’s awesome,” said Puni of family’s school lineage. “To see history right in front of my eyes was cool.”
Puni has been at South for seven years and wants to reconnect the school to its deep 95-year athletic history. His office walls are festooned with school athletic memorabilia from its days as a senior secondary on Kingsway including a 1940-ish cardigan.
“The kids dig the retro stuff,” said Puni. “It’s a historical thing that I think is important.”
Calli plans to take sports science at Douglas College in the fall with the eventual goal of becoming either a sports psychologist or a physiotherapist. Laini isn’t sure what career direction she’ll take, but no matter what both intend to be involved in sports and want to coach. They’ve already working with legendary Burnaby hoop coach Norm Roberts at SBMC.
When asked if there was any pressure being at the end of a long line of South athletes, she laughed and said, “Just the pressure to find a house around here.
