A Real Legacy Builder featuring Gord Pepple
Gord Pepple grew up in Yorkton wanting to play hockey, until a friend from Wales showed him what soccer could be. His first teaching job, in the fall of 1992, took him to Little Pine First Nation, a community with deep soccer roots. Two years later, he let the boys choose between volleyball and soccer: "we can either do two things half-assed or we can do one thing really good." They chose soccer and won the provincial high school title, celebrating with jackets covered in embroidery.
Over the next three decades, Gord coached, drove the van, organized and refereed his way through the soccer scene around the Battlefords. He remembers taking 55 Little Pine kids to try out for the North American Indigenous Games, co-running the Summer Games in Little Pine (and handing out half a semi-load of leftover milk door to door afterwards), and a short-handed youth team that played a whole indoor tournament in Saskatoon on A535 and heart. He also shares the pride of watching his late son, Braden, score the deciding penalty to win FSIN, and a $5,000 final decided in a field of mud.
After more than 20 years with the whistle, Gord jokes that he has the best seat at every tournament: "I'm always in the final. I'm always in the money."
Gord has a challenge for listeners: dig through your closets and photo albums. Have old pictures, programs, newspaper clippings or team jackets? Share your soccer stories, donate or lend items for copying, and visit the showcases at Kinsmen / Henk Ruys and the Saskatoon Soccer Centre.