By Hannah MacLeod
On Oct. 1, a good crowd came out to Alumni Hall at Western University in London for the annual Leslie Petter memorial tournament and memorial award presentation.
Leslie Petter was a devoted and highly respected teacher, athletic director and coach at Medway High School in Arva. She passed away on May 11, 2011, at the age of 47, after surviving leukemia and a bone marrow transplant at age 24. Even in her last month of life she helped to organize the “Transplant Trot”, an event which raises awareness of the importance of organ transplants.
The tournament is organized by her father, Ted Petter, a Kincardine local who is also self-proclaimed ‘basketball junkie’.
This year, Petter explained that it was more difficult for coach Nate McKibbon to find time for the tournament during a very busy post-COVID season startup, but Petter was very pleased with the mini tournament that took place, and mentioned that the event could help build chemistry between team-mates and their six new players this season.
On Thursday, Sept. 29, Western played Fanshawe, and won 67-47.
On Friday, Sept. 30, Western played Brock, and won 63-59.
Finally, on Saturday, Oct. 1, Western played Fraser Valley, from B. C., and lost 86-60.
At the tournament, the Leslie Petter Women’s Basketball Memorial Award was presented to two third year students who exemplify Leslie’s best qualities; the recipient must have an excellent work ethic, knowledge of the game, reliability of execution and a tremendous amount of heart, all while holding up an admission average of 80% or a non-entering in-course average of 70%.
This year’s recipients were Ariane Saumure, of Sudbury and Morgan Tamminga, of London.
“Leslie was only five-foot-seven,” concluded Petter. “But you’d swear thirty pounds of that was her heart.”
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