A local teacher has won a prestigious high school rugby award.
Cloverdale’s Walter van Halst, a history teacher at Lord Tweedsmuir, was recently awarded the Honorary Members Award (HMA) by the B.C. Secondary Schools Rugby Union (BCSSRU).
Van Halst was given the award at the BCSSRU annual banquet held during the provincial championships at the end of May in Abbotsford. He’s been the high school rugby commissioner for more than a decade and involved with the rugby championships for 18 years.
“I’m very honoured to be given the award,” van Halst told the Cloverdale Reporter. “It was very nice, but I was caught off guard. It was unexpected.”
The HMA is a lifetime achievement award for BCSSRU members who've made an “exemplary contribution” to the sport of rugby union in the high school setting, as it pertains to leading or running the high school championships.
Overcome with emotion when he received the award, van Halst was presented with the honour by his long-time mentor Stephen Rowell. Rowell was the BCSSRU commissioner before van Halst and a singular force helping to grow high school rugby in British Columbia.
The Honorary Members Award is the highest award one can win in B.C. high school rugby.
“It's for being basically a builder of the game as someone who's played a leadership role in organizing the sport,” noted van Halst. “It’s for holding up and ensuring the integrity of the sport, the fairness of it, and for helping to organize the championships.”
Two HMA awards were given out at the B.C. High School Championships banquet. Along with van Halst, Canadian rugby legend Eddie Evans was also awarded an HMA.
Evans runs a company called Extreme Sportswear and he’s donated a lot to the high school provincial championships over the years. Recently, Evans created a scholarship fund and this year 12 student athletes were awarded scholarships at this year's provincial tournament.
“He's been such a generous contributor to our sport,” van Halst said of Evans. “He's done so much as a player, but in recent years he's become a philanthropist. He's got a group called Friends of B.C. Rugby, which has an event every year during the 7s, and they raise money for scholarships.”
For van Halst, his award recognized several things he’s done over the years to transform the face of high school rugby. He started the junior boys provincial championships. He brought in a AAAA tier to allow more teams to take part in the tournament and to be competitive—it’s now one of the biggest sporting events in North America with more than 1,200 athletes taking part. He started the Stadium Series, which offers teams in different zones the chance to play each other—zone interlock matches that normally wouldn’t take place until provincials. And he created a “coaching excellence” award a few years ago, which is also given out at the annual high school rugby banquet.
“There's both 7s and 15s and both boys and girls,” van Halst noted. “So, it's a much larger tournament than it used to be. I volunteer and I do the opening ceremonies. I do the closing ceremonies. I do the awards presentations. The coaches' dinner and things like that.”
Along with the two builder awards given out at the banquet, van Halst awarded four high school coaches honours in different categories.
When van Halst started his volunteer run at the championship 18 years ago, it was held at UBC. At the time, he just offered to help out in any way he could.
“I started doing small things like picking up garbage, putting up scores, and then after a while someone kind of noticed and asked if I’d like to do a little more, if I’d like to take a bigger role.”
He jumped at the chance and his role “got a little bigger every year” until he was running the show and acting as commissioner of the BCSSRU.
He’s most proud of adding junior boys to provincials and for creating the Stadium Series.
“The Stadium Series is an attempt to promote the sport by having games at times when parents can get there, instead of right after school,” explained van Halst. “But most critically, it's designed to create a greater system of fairness in the ranking of teams from different zones.
“So teams from Vancouver Island might play teams from the Lower Mainland, teams from the Fraser Valley might play someone from the Interior. And that way, we have some way of comparing our teams from different parts of the province prior to the provincial tournament—trying to make the rankings as fair and transparent as possible.”
He’s humbled with the whole experience of winning, but noted there are a lot of people who have done more than him for high school rugby.
He said he’ll keep giving of his time as long as he can walk up and down the pitch.
“I'm happy to help out where I can and I'll help out as long as I can,” van Halst added. “As long as I’m needed and wanted, I guess.
"You help out until they kick you out. Something like that.”
