Fifty years is a long time to spend coaching teenagers, but for Bill Edwards, it must still feel like yesterday that he walked down the hallways of North Delta Secondary School for the first time, not much older than the students he taught and coached.
In 1974, only 25 years old, the fresh-faced Edwards took over some tough reins from the legendary Stan Stewardson and began leading the Huskies, quickly gaining a senior boys provincial title in 1975.
He led a Huskies team in 1990 that featured Mitch Berger (who went on to NFL history in 10 teams as a punter, winning a Super Bowl XLIII ring with the Steelers against the Cardinals.)
As a key assistant as recently as 2819-19, Edwards helped the Huskies capture a Triple A championship title.
Over the years, he’s also served as an assistant coach at SFU and then as the head coach of the UBC Thunderbirds for two seasons.
There isn’t a year where Edwards hasn’t made a positive and long-lasting impact on players, and the volume of tributes and accolades would fill a book on its own.
Even today, he remains an important part of the 2023-24 team as both an assistant coach and a consultant at North Delta.
“Once he left North Delta, he went to Sands Secondary, but then, back in 2017-2018, Gary Sandhu and Jesse Hundai reached out to him and brought him back. I met him in grade nine, when he was at Delview, and he used to referee games, and Vlad, (Vladimir Nikic, now vice principal at NDSS) was a coach at Delview. Four or five years ago, when Bill found out that I started teaching, he encouraged me. “You should come out to North Delta one day.”
So when a job opened up here, I took it. He’s always treated us like gold,” Jaskaran Dhanda, athletic director at NDSS said.
On Thursday, Jan 25, the Huskies held a Bill Edwards appreciation night at the school ahead of a 7:15 p.m. tip-off against the crosstown rivals, the Seaquam Seahawks.
A post-game gathering followed.
“We must honour the tradition of great educators, alumni and North Deltans. It’s good to start with Bill Edwards. He’s a heck of a man, and as far as I believe, on a personal, professional, and community level, he’s arguably the greatest coach that has graced our school. No one has done more as a coach for this community than he has.” Dhandra said.
At his appreciation night, the humble 74-year-old Edwards heard testimonies from many years of fellow coaches, students, and friends.
In his autobiography, published in 1996, coach Stan Stewardson reflected on Bill’s tenacity. “Bill was that the rock-solid, dive on the floor, sweat-drenched defensive specialist,” Stewardson wrote.
Rick McCaig, a former JV NDSS player, said, “When I first moved to North Delta, Mr. Edwards was my JV basketball coach. He was very fair and knowledgeable. Even though I was a hockey player, and it was a successful basketball program, he treated me like one of rest and gave me a chance to play. I will never forget the chance he gave me to let me play.”
John Mantei shared many good memories of Edwards. “The one I will never forget is Mr Edwards driving “Betsy” the NDSS school bus when he was taking our boys school soccer team to the 1982 Provincial High School Championship held at Coquitlam’s Mundy Park.
When we got to the field. He said to me, “Mantei, you are the Captain, right?” I replied yes. He said, “I know Tom Millar is the coach, and not me, but if I could say one thing to your team, is that OK?” I said, of course, Mr. Edwards. He then addressed our team. ‘You guys are a very good team, but there’s lots of work still to put in if you want to be Provincial AAA Champions. But no one remembers who came second so just go win the whole thing!’
We did win it, by the way,” he added. I had the honour of coming back to NDSS to coach both the boys and girls soccer teams for three years in the late 80s and early 90s.”
Howard Tsumura, local sports writer, NDSS alumni and friend of Bill Edwards, wrote in his Varsity Letters, “Along the way, Bill Edwards has weathered the storms that aging brings, and with each passing season, his influence, like that of the handful of enduring cross-generational B.C. high school coaches, seems more and more mythical.
But really, boiled to its essence, he is still the same kid who came of age in the early 1960s and who, despite maybe not having the most talent in the gym, found his direction in life by simply playing this beautiful game the only way he knew how.”
