OTTAWA, ON – On Wednesday, May 28th at Lansdowne Park’s Horticulture Building, the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame will induct the Class of 2025 into our local sports shrine. Each Wednesday until the ceremony, the Sport Hall will post an article on an aspect of the event. Today’s feature is a profile on 2025 Inductees Don Campbell and Jo-Anne Polak.

Don Campbell and Jo-Anne Polak’s contributions to Ottawa sport vary a fair bit, but each were very significant, and now the couple of 25 years are set to enter the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame at the same time this spring.

“It’s so cool that we are going in together (even though) our stories are so different,” Polak said in a Postmedia feature by Don Brennan about the Ottawa Sport Hall’s Class of ’25.

“It is a great honour to share something with the many Hall of Famers I have admired over the years,” Campbell added.

JO-ANNE POLAK (BUILDER – FOOTBALL)

Polak is a pioneer in sport. Still in her 20s, she was hired as the Ottawa Rough Riders’ business manager in 1988 and a year later was promoted to become the first female general manager of a pro sports team in North America.

Polak had to overcome not only sexist attitudes at the time, but also the challenge of serving during some of darker days for the CFL and the Riders.

“I was terrified of being the first woman and being at the helm when that franchise folded,” Polak reflected in a 2020 Postmedia feature by Tim Baines. “I was seized with fear for three years. And fear’s an incredible motivator.”

Although Polak recognized that her primary job was to sell tickets and keep the franchise alive – which she did – the team’s on-field performance also improved during her three seasons as GM.

“Women didn’t have big jobs at all at that time,” Polak noted in a recent Ottawa Redblacks International Women’s Day feature. “Women were treated very differently back then. Women were definitely second-class citizens, some might say third-class citizens. Women reporters weren’t allowed in the locker room.

“Some thought [my hiring] was the most ridiculous thing a team could do. I couldn’t possibly have this job, I never played football, and I didn’t coach, therefore, I can’t have this job.”

While some men in football leadership wrote her off, Polak felt Ottawa football fans always had her back.

“It completely went against everything that society knew, but that city and that sports community made this happen,” underlined Polak, who saw some attitudes adjust during her tenure.

“You could see generational change happening right before your eyes,” she indicated. “There were a lot of bad things that happened to me, but I never focused on that. There were people in the league who were in their 60s and 70s who wanted nothing to do with me or this, you could see it, but you could see it change over the course of the generations.

“There were guys in their 40s who thought, ‘Yeah, this is cool. I’ve got daughters who could do this.’”

Currently Canada Post’s Senior Vice President of Corporate & Employee Communications, Polak now also serves on Football Canada’s board of directors. She’s thrilled to see women’s sports taking off, with increased professional opportunities.

“It’s amazing,” Polak said. “I remember two years ago going to a women’s tackle football national championship here in Ottawa, and I was just weak at the knees. I was just so excited about it because [I remember a time when] there weren’t women in anything. Even women’s soccer wasn’t even a thing. Back then, women just didn’t participate in sports at all.”

DON CAMPBELL (BUILDER – MEDIA)

Campbell is a gifted sports writer who has been serving Ottawa newspaper readers for more than four decades. Football and baseball are among his specialties, while some of his most memorable work was done covering the Ottawa 67’s.

Through his writing, Campbell gave lots of colour to the colourful character they call Killer. Upon Brian Kilrea’s retirement in 2009, Campbell penned a personal account that was only possible to print thanks to the close relationship he built with the famed coach (although it doesn’t take long to grow fond of D.C.).

Campbell wrote that after Kilrea had spent roughly 50 of 50 years of his marriage regularly out of the house, his wife Judy had accumulated a sizeable to-do list for the legend to tackle in retirement.

“I do have a list, but he’s never going to do any of them,” she told Campbell. “I don’t really think much is going to change. Maybe he’ll find out where the ladder is around here … we’ve only been in this house since 1961. He might find it.”

Campbell also noted that Kilrea had a romantic side “beneath his sometimes crusty demeanour.”

Campbell himself is well-recognized for deadpan humour. Once told there was a unique voice that makes his writing identifiable without seeing his byline, Campbell quipped: “Must be all the spelling mistakes.”

Perhaps appropriately, Campbell was also the first recipient of the City of Ottawa’s Brian Kilrea Coaching Award for his decades of work as an Ottawa-Nepean Canadians baseball coach and manager. Always focused on doing what’s best for his players, Campbell has helped dozens of them land scholarships and tryouts.

“Honestly, it’s an honour to receive something that has my coaching idol’s name on it,” Campbell told the Ottawa Citizen‘s Ken Warren in 2012. “Anyone who has worked with Brian has learned a lot from him, in terms of how he treats and respects kids in sports, and I compare every pro coach to Brian’s standard because he is so good to players.”

Warren also noted that Campbell would bring a hacking cough to the office every year when winter turned to spring, he’d be burnt red in the summer from all his time at the diamond, and that he’d occasionally be hobbled by an injury, thus providing proof that the bench was the best place for him to make an impact in sport.

“Pulled a hamstring,” he explained, “trying to teach the kids rundown plays.”

MAY 28 OTTAWA SPORT HALL OF FAME INDUCTION EVENING

Tickets for the Wednesday, May 28th Induction Ceremony are now sold out!

In the lead-up to the banquet, full-length features on each of the inductees and honoured teams will be posted on the Hall’s website at OttawaSportHall.ca and shared through the Ottawa Sports Pages.

Sponsorship opportunities are still available. See OttawaSportHall.ca/Sponsorship for more details.

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Contact:

Dave Best
Chair, Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame
Chair@OttawaSportHall.ca

About the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame:

The Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization, which documents, curates and celebrates outstanding achievement in local sport heritage. The Sport Hall is overseen by a volunteer Board of Directors to maintain and preserve our rich sporting legacies. Each year, the Hall of Fame Board receives nominations from the public and selects new inductees to be honoured in the Hall.