COC’s Randy Starkman Award

Boxing isn’t a sport that often gets covered enough by most media not just in BC, but also Canada as a whole.

We have numerous boxing clubs in the lower mainland but none are listed in Delta but there are various clubs in the lower mainland as well as the remainder of the province, all of which are growing in size.

We are pleased to report that the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) has presented Boxer Mary Spencer with the 2019 Randy Starkman Award. 

The Award is in recognition of a National Team Athlete who has used all of their sporting excellence to benefit the community in which they live as well as Canada.

The award is named in honour of a sports journalist who was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame after his premature death at the young age of 51 in 2012.

When she was younger she wanted to be in the NBA, but when high school came along, basketball was just something she played only for fun. 

It wasn’t as aggressive as she would have liked and she mentioned “If I had a chance to play football, I definitely would have, because I liked the full contact and all the sports I played in school were physical, but you were never supposed to get too physical.” 

When she was heading to the Olympics she knew that everyone expected her to win Gold  and she expected the same thing for myself as nothing less would be good enough.

Spencer (34) is one of Canada’s most successful boxers managing to win three (3) World Titles and five (5) Pan American Titles in her young career.

She competed at middleweight category when Women’s Boxing made its Olympic debut at London 2012.

A Committee led by the Starkman family which features members of the sporting community selected Spencer for the award due to her “countless hours” giving back to her community in Cape Croker, Kashechewan and other regions of Northern Ontario.

Along with the recognition her prize includes CAD$15,000 (£8,800/$11,000/€10,000), with CAD$10,000 (£6,000/$7,500/€6,800) coming from the Randy Starkman Charitable Foundation to benefit a charity or initiative of Spencer’s choice.

The remaining money is for her personal use, that also saw the COC pledge to donate $5,000 (£3,000/$3,800/€3,400) to Spencer’s chosen charity.

Spencer mentioned “When I first started boxing, once I got on the national team, I found myself in a better place than I was when I started as a teenager and I wanted to start going back to my roots and giving back.” 

She continued “You hear all these issues and problems that are facing First Nations communities, and what do you do and well, all you can do is bring your gifts, right?” 

“Bring your gifts and use them in a good way and for me, it’s a sport that’s the gift that I have and the only way I know how to use that in a good way is to share it with young people and teach them.” 

Finishing off she mentioned “That’s how I feel like I can contribute to communities.”