Class of 2024 BC Football HOF – Part 2

Hall of Fame in 2022. Glen Suitor 

Long before Glen Suitor became a fixture on television screens as a media personality on the CFL on TSN, he was a standout defensive back terrorizing opposition offenses on the gridiron throughout his entire 11-year CFL career all spent with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. 

Born in New Westminster, BC but growing up in North Vancouver, Glen attended Carson Graham Secondary where he played quarterback and defensive back and was named team MVP in 1980 in addition to being the school’s male athlete of the year. 

Suitor would stay close to home to continue pursuing his football dreams as he made his way to Burnaby Mountain to suit up for Simon Fraser University. 

He would be named an NAIA Conference All-Star in 1982, and an Evergreen Conference All-Star in 1983. 

Those honours were enough to attract the attention of the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders who would make him a second-round draft (10th overall) in the 1984 CFL Draft. Suitor would make the Roughriders’ faith in him pay off. 

He spent his entire 11-season CFL career from 1984 to 1994 in Saskatchewan and was a three-time CFL All-Star (1991-93) and a five-time CFL West All-Star (1989-93). 

He also played an instrumental part in the Roughriders’ 1989 Grey Cup championship team recording an interception in the Grey Cup game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats while pinning the ball on the go-ahead field goal which stood up as the game-winning points. 

Suitor’s 51 career interceptions is the most in Saskatchewan Roughriders history. 

In addition, Suitor is 9th in league history for all time interceptions and fumble recoveries for all teams. After his final season, he joined the TSN broadcast booth as a guest analyst for the 1994 Grey Cup game and, since then, he has been a fixture on the CFL on TSN as well as on other media outlets. 

BUILDER 

Dave Hawkshaw Dave Hawkshaw is the only Canadian to be a full time official in the NFL. Dave also had an illustrious career in the CFL. 

Growing up, he was a multi-sport athlete as a high-level alpine skier while also playing soccer, baseball, and football. His father,

Bruce, was an on-field official in the CFL in the 1990s and the younger Dave would choose to follow in his father’s footsteps when he first began referring GSL football games alongside his dad and brother. 

Hawkshaw’s early officiating career would see him on the field for numerous big games in BC high school football, refereeing many finals, whether it be AA or AAA, the Canadian Junior Football League , where he refereed finals in BC, or Canadian Championships. 

He also officiated three years in university football, where he was chosen as the traveling official for the BCFOA through the early 2000s. 

He would then be recruited to work in the big leagues. In 2005 at the Grey cup Dave was invited by George Black, the officiating Director to officiate in the CFL the following year. 

He was told in the locker room just before going out on the field as a ball boy alongside his brother Drew. 

Officiating his first CFL game at the old Taylor Field in Regina in 2006 was the start of a 189- game CFL career that included three Grey Cups, one as an alternate and two on the field. 

Thanks to an officiating partnership between the CFL and the NFL in 2016, Hawkshaw had the opportunity to train in the U.S. with NFL officials for three seasons. 

As of 2019, Hawkshaw was a full-time on-field NFL official. At the conclusion of the 2023 season Hawkshaw has officiated 113 NFL games and four playoff games, each year he was eligible to do so. 

oug Staveley If you mentioned Doug Staveley’s name to anybody in Richmond, BC, odds are it won’t take too long before somebody recognizes it.

Staveley has had an incredible reach in the community of Richmond, particularly in the education field, as he has coached for over 40 years including at four secondary schools – Steveston High, Cambie Secondary, Hugh Boyd, and Steveston-London. 

As a student at Lord Byng Secondary School in Vancouver, he was a five-sport athlete playing football, rugby, basketball, baseball, and cricket. 

After high school, he focused on playing football and rugby at the University of British Columbia.

In Richmond, however, he would simply be “the coach.” He would first serve as the assistant coach of the senior boys football team at Steveston High School from 1973 to 1978 (during which time he also coached their senior boys and senior girls basketball teams). 

He also spent some time as the football league convenor in Vancouver & District during the 1970s. From 1985 to 1988, Staveley would be an active CFL official all the time while teaching. Staveley would re-emerge in the coaching scene in the mid-1990s when he went to Cambie Secondary to coach basketball. 

During that same time, he was also part of the BC Secondary Schools Football Association’s executive (1992 to 1995) as well as serving as president of the association in 1995.

He would return to the football sidelines as a coach in 2002 when he took on the role of assistant coach with Hugh Boyd Secondary’s boys teams until 2008. 

He also coached in Surrey from 2012 to 2016. Staveley was inducted into the Richmond Sports Wall of Fame in 2018. 

In 2020, he was honoured by the BC Lions with an Orange Helmet Pioneer Award.

Farhan Lalji Recognition

There are few individuals who have had as profound an impact on the growth of high school football in BC than Farhan Lalji.

It was through Lalji’s efforts on the sponsorship and negotiation side that led to the BC high school football provincial championships gaining its first title sponsorship known as the “Subway Bowl.” 

In the years that followed, the “Subway Bowl” became arguably the most recognized amateur annual sporting event in the province, with BC Place – home of the BC Lions – serving as its primary home. 

Beyond just negotiating the naming rights for the high school provincial championships, Lalji also put it on the map by leveraging his media networks to implement nationally- televised broadcasts of the Subway Bowl from 2002-2012 on Sportsnet. 

He also helped arrange for weekly broadcasts of high school football contests on Rogers TV before the games later gained an online presence. 

Lalji also provided a platform of appreciation for the student athletes by pioneering the provincial all-star awards dinner beginning in 2001, the annual NCAA Signing Day press conference, as well as annual all-star games, including the BC High School Football Association all-star game in 2018. 

At the same time Lalji was building up all of high school football, he also restarted the long dormant football program at New Westminster Secondary for 2003. 

Over the course of the next 17 seasons, he grew the Hyacks program into one of the most consistent winners in the province. 

Lalji’s varsity team captured the 2017 championship, while the junior varsity team won the title in 2015. Around 50 players in the programs over the two decades since its rebirth received college scholarships. 

Lalji also served as president of BC High School Football from 2010 to 2012, with one of his major policies being the enactment of the association’s safety policy around concussion prevention. 

Outside of amateur football circles, most people also recognize Lalji as being a fixture on the television screens of sports fans since 1997 when he first joined TSN as a Vancouverbased reporter. 

Though he has covered a range of sports from Super Bowls to Stanley Cups, it is his work with football and, particularly, the Canadian Football League where fans know him the best. 

Through his work in media, Lalji has covered the biggest games on the biggest scale including in the CFL, NFL, NCAA and, of course, multiple Grey Cup games. 

Aside from TSN, Lalji has contributed or worked for several media outlets including the CBC, CKWX Radio, Team (later TSN) 1040, and CTV. Between his work in amateur football and broadcasting, Lalji has compiled an impressive list of accolades and awards. 

He was a runner-up for the NFL Canada National Coach of the Year in 2004 and 2012, the 2009 Provincial Scholastic Coach of the Year at the BC Lions Orange Helmet Awards.

In addition he was the 2012 Citizen of the Year for New Westminster as well as a multiple time winner of the Best Sports TV Reporter in Vancouver at the Paul Carson Broadcast & Media Awards, and was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in the Media wing in 2024.