With Doug Blair now stepping back from his role at North Toronto Soccer Club, we sat down with the long-serving director to look back on his passion for soccer and a people-centered approach that helped grow the club to where it is today.
How did your relationship start with North Toronto Soccer Club?
I started as a parent 30 years ago; we’d just moved to the area and my sons joined soccer in 1993. I was just an average active parent; I helped when I could like putting out cones or coaching when a coach couldn’t make it. I decided I wanted to spend more time doing things that my children are involved in.
Then about 16 years ago, there were some issues. The sport was growing and there weren’t enough fields, so a couple of other parents and I got involved in acquiring field space from city parks, schools, and private facilities. We were quite successful and able to accommodate a lot more children and expand the program into late teens, early 20s.
The club was largely a recreational program with a lot of players but not that many opportunities to advance to higher levels. I got more and more involved as well as in the financial aspect, and then became a volunteer director of the club in early 2008.
How did your role progress from 2008 to eventually leading the club’s operation?
A few years later I became General Manager and then Executive Director. The club was growing and needed somebody to run it so I kept on asking the board to hire somebody, and somebody said, “well, what about you?”
I kept saying no until I eventually said I’d like to do it for a couple of years, and then stayed for 12 and a half years. We are constantly adding programmes and the club has grown eight-fold.
What were the key factors that kept you at the club for so long?
Creating opportunities for children to play, boys and girls, and giving their parents a chance to participate as volunteers.
As well as fields, the main thing at the beginning was organizing a financial structure that would enable the club to field more competitive teams so that the children could stay through their teens, and ultimately later, and continue to play at whatever level they chose.
I had planned to retire but then stayed on due to the COVID-19 pandemic creating a lot of issues; we had to keep everything together as far as the coaching staff, fields, and the whole infrastructure. It was heartbreaking to see things stop and not be able to continue the way they were, but we picked everything up again.
What legacy are you leaving at the club?
Currently the club operates at every level from aged four, what we call Active Start Programmes, all the way through to semi-professional in League1 Ontario where we have the maximum number of teams playing: three men’s and three women’s teams. We also have eight sides in the ODPL.
The recreational program is still very strong, and with Billy Wilson [taking over as Executive Director] we’ve implemented a club philosophy that everyone at the club has a chance to play. If they want to play more, they can play more, you don’t have to be part of a top team to do that.
It gives me great satisfaction seeing how they’ve elevated their game and how our club has been able to support their efforts in various ways by providing an infrastructure that can lead them to achieve everything that they can.
What are your fondest memories?
Since my kids have grown up now, I get great satisfaction seeing a lot of children playing on the fields, especially on a Saturday or Sunday morning when the numbers are huge.
I’ve known some players since they were four years old or even younger and now they are playing at a high level, a lot are getting scholarships to Canadian and US universities, some are playing for national team programs. It gives me great satisfaction seeing how they’ve elevated their game and how our club has been able to support their efforts in various ways by providing an infrastructure that can lead them to achieve everything that they can.
I also love to go to the Special Olympics program; some players have been there for years and years and it warms everyone’s heart seeing them achieve things they couldn’t do before. It’s so important to them.
It’s not all about just playing soccer, though. How have you used the sport to create other opportunities?
For years we had 120 young men and women coaching, acting as match officials, or working as operations staff; that number has grown in the past while so it’s almost 200 people now getting work experience. We are helping them with their coaching badges and referee courses which is very encouraging.
There’s a lot of programs that they can participate in and parents now like their children to be trialling various activities, so people come and go and some stay. It’s important that we welcome people, whether they are new or returning, and it’s great to see kids involved in activities; especially teenagers who have other influences in their life that make them inactive so often.
We also have qualified coaches delivering physical education programs in schools.
How did founding the North Toronto Sports Foundation complement your work at North Toronto Soccer Club?
We’ve implemented programs where we financially support players whose families can’t afford them to play, providing them with shoes and various other things to get them involved. Just over five years ago we decided that if we could create a separate charitable organization, people who donated to that program could get a tax receipt, while it also opened the door to receiving grant money from other funders.
Since this subsidy program started, hundreds of families have donated and we haven’t had to turn anyone away who didn’t meet the financial criteria. We worked with a lot of social welfare agencies and immigration industries to help identify and support the kids who want to play but were forced to give up everything in their home country.
What are your plans now?
I’m looking forward to retiring and being able to travel more. Soccer is now a 12-month activity seven days a week and there are a lot of things to be responsible for, so I’ve not had as much vacation with my wife as I’d like to have; we have family in Ottawa and Charlotte who we would like to visit more and there’s other places we want to see as a couple or with friends.
I’ll still be involved with the Foundation part-time – I’m not winding down fully yet – and I’ll still be going to the park and seeing games. I look forward to the League1 Ontario and ODPL games that are very exciting to watch.
How do you feel hearing the plaudits that have been bestowed on you?
I worked with a lot of great people. We’ve had a great volunteer board of directors, members, and other people in key roles throughout the time I’ve been with the club; many of them have continued their work for several years and even when their children are no longer been playing here.
People are giving me credit for a lot of things I was not fully responsible for. A lot of the things we did years ago were with a larger group of people, and many volunteers, supporting the Foundation and allowing children to play soccer. It wasn’t just me, it takes a lot of people to put on a program.
The younger ones are running the club now. The board of directors and the staff want to continue to do things the way they’ve been done in the past, while also taking the opportunity of recovering from the pandemic to improve a lot of areas.
It’s time for the next generation.
