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| Kerry Leitch is shown on the left in this 1959 photo with other London Majors teammates, Crawford Douglas, Stan "Gabby" Anderson and Roy McKay.
I am fascinated by people of contrasts, especially those who have the aptitude and motivation to live their contrasts to the fullest.
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I first learned about Kerry Leitch when reading The London Free Press sports pages in 1954 and '55. His name cropped up frequently in connection with the London Majors of the Senior Intercounty Baseball League. I came across him in person in the summer of '55 when teams from Wallaceburg and Strathroy met in a neutral grounds OBA playoff final in my hometown of Dresden, ON. Kerry was a catcher and his battery mate in that game was Paul Langlois of River Canard (Windsor) who would later become a member of the Intercounty's St. Thomas Elgins and a life-long personal friend.
In those days, as I recall, London Majors had a working arrangement with nearby Strathroy, where younger players would spend a season developing their skill before moving up to the big team.
Kerry was an excellent defensive catcher with a better-than-average bat and good enough to earn tryouts with the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. He became a full-fledged member of the Majors in 1956 and played with the team well into the 1960s, winning several Sr. I-C titles along the way. In fact during his time the London team would go through three names -- Majors, Diamonds and Pontiacs. (Strange that he had a habit of being absent for a number of the team's official photos.) The thing I remember most about him was that he was the first catcher I ever saw wear a peakless helmet under his mask when behind the plate. Always kind of an innovator.
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| Kerry, circa 1960 |
But that is only half of the Kerry Leitch story.
Growing up in Woodstock, he also wanted to play hockey and this desire led to lessons in figure skating to improve his skating ability. At the age of 10 his parents enrolled him in the Woodstock Figure Skating Club so he could learn to skate properly for hockey. As a youngster he had always wanted to be a professional baseball player. He idolized Major League players like Yogi Berra, Mike Hegan, Mickey Mantle, Bob Feller, and in hockey, he looked up to Teeder Kennedy, Max Bentley, Gordie Howe and Turk Broda.
“I found I really enjoyed figure skating and consequently played hockey and figure skated throughout my youth,” he once explained.
At the age of 17 he began coaching part-time to help pay for college. He wanted to be an aeronautical engineer, and attended the University of Detroit in pursuit of that dream. But it was expensive and proved too costly for him to continue, so he returned to semi-pro baseball and coaching figure skating since he enjoyed working with young people.
He couldn’t have known then that his decision to enter the coaching ranks while still playing baseball would transform the world of Canadian figure skating for decades to come.
Many of his skaters would go on to compete at the World Championships and Olympic Games, and he became one of the most highly touted figure skating coaches on the planet and virtually a household name in the sport.
Based in Cambridge at the Preston Figure Skating Club, his first students of note would be pairs skaters Paul Mills and Josie France-Jamieson. Other Preston Figure Skating Club athletes to win awards in subsequent years included Lloyd Eisler and Katherine Matousek – they were two-time winners, in 1984 and 1985 – Cindy Landry and Lyndon Johnston (1989), and Doug Ladret and Christine “Tuffy” Hough (1992).
Kerry was the consummate coach. His job didn’t stop with the end of the workday. Typically, he would work 12-15 hour days, though often it was -even more than that. An extremely driven and motivated person, he always had a passion for his work, something that separated him from many others. His challenge? To develop world-class athletes.
Along the way he has been an innovator, pioneering the concept of Team Coaching, where he would surround himself with talented coaches. Together they built nothing less than a skating empire in what was then the small town of Preston. For two decades, from 1975 to 1995, no skating club in Canada produced as many Canadian champions as the Preston Figure Skating Club.
The club’s success bred more success, with skaters coming from far and wide to study their sport under an acknowledged master.
By the mid-70’s, the now retired baseball catcher had carved out a niche as a world-class skating coach. He knew that coaches play a far larger role in the development of a young athlete than most people realize. “I always believed it was very important to work diligently to develop each athlete’s skills in life,” he was once quoted as saying.
Which is why he emphasized things like sportsmanship, manners, and public speaking. “I always wanted the athlete to leave the sport of figure skating as a well-rounded and good person. The medals and championships won on their path to success as a person were just a bonus.”
“The sport is a beautiful sport and the only tarnish is the bureaucratic political influence of the officials who have sacrificed their once good intentions for self-gain.” This political dishonesty in some quarters somewhat spoiled the latter years of his coaching career, “but the memories of the wonderful athletes I have been fortunate enough to train, will always be with me,” he emphasized.
And he pointed to the Kurt Brownings, the Scott Hamiltons, and the Barbara Ann Scotts as representing the “true meaning of the sport.”
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| Kerry, today |
As a former Figure Skating Coaches of Canada President and board member of the Canadian Figure Skating Association (now Skate Canada), Leitch helped to push the sport forward through his roles as a coach and sport administrator. He authored figure skating coach certification courses in both Canada and the USA, and was a featured presenter at many Canadian, US and ISU seminars for coaches, skaters and judges.
Actually, his list of credits would run on for a couple of pages. He was chief referee at the Goodwill games in Lake Placid in February, 2000, and was a multiple winner of the Longines-Wittnauer Coaching Excellence Award presented by the Coaching Association of Canada. He is a also a Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame inductee and a member of the Skate Canada Hall of Fame...Not bad for an old baseball catcher!
Kerry's coaching career eventually took him to Florida in the 1990s where he eventually retired in Bradenton with his wife Kathy. The Leitchs of course are grandparents, a number of times over.
I'm kind of glad that I knew Kerry Leitch when...
I'm kind of glad that I knew Kerry Leitch when...
2 comments:
I don't know what brought this up today as it's a cold blustery day in Minnesota... But somehow I thought of baseball and KERRY LEITCH who is my catcher for the London majors. We had a lot of fun for a couple years and I went off to college at Indiana University on the baseball team. But the days with KERRY LEITCH were unbelievable. No the teammates all found out that was a figure skater so his nickname was twinkle toes and we used to get more lotta hard time about being twinkle toes and teaching skating. But we should've not been so critical of his twinkle toes and just had more support for him because he's gone on to be fantastic.
Carrie was always prepared for a baseball game he and I would study the batters and can't remember where they like to hit in their sweet spots but he had very thick glasses and so sometimes he did not see all of the pitch especially in all parks at the moon is brighter than the lights. But anyway he wears white tape on his fingers so at least I could see the pitches that he was calling it was very it was very fun and I really appreciate the fact that KERRY LEITCH.
Appreciate your response Lorne. What years did you play for the Majors along with Kerry? I played with the St. Thomas Elgins 1956-57 and '61, may have even batted against you maybe in '56. I remember facing the Majors' Bob Simpson, Roy McKay and Dutch Perkins that year.
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