Innisfail Minor Football coach Wally Genz has been named a “Regional Game Changer” in a national contest, thanks to his impact both on and off the field.
He is now in competition for one of eight finalist spots in the Scotiabank Game Changer competition, with a chance to win $100,000 for local sports facilities.
“It's kinda like their first round of cuts,” he said. “Low and behold I made it into the second round.”
Regional game changers are awarded four tickets to a 2012 Canadian Football League (CFL) Regular-Season Game, the chance to stand on the sidelines during warm-up and the national anthem, a team jersey with Scotiabank Game Changers patch, a Scotiabank Game Changers Football and most importantly a $1,000 charitable donation.
Out of the top eight who will be flown to the 2012 CFL Grey Cup in Toronto on Nov. 25, one will be pronounced the National Game Changer.
Michael "Pinball" Clemons, the CFL's Mark Cohon, TSN's Stewart Johnston, and Scotiabank's Anatol von Hahn will help make the final cut based on the nominee's record of making a difference in health, education, social services, arts, sports or the environment. The winner will receive two installments of $50,000 annually for the charity of their choice.
“I've worked with a lot of kids here and there,” Genz said. “It hasn't always been easy.”
From head coaching duties for the 2012 bantam and peewee football teams, to getting inmates at the Bowden Institution to participate in giving back to the community, Genz has made a mark on the social landscape of Innisfail.
“I worked with a lot of lifers at the institution,” he said, noting in one case the prisoners actually helped make some one-of-a-kind trophies for minor football. “They reconditioned some old helmets with fancy airbrush artwork and mounted it on a pedestal.”
Genz says he dreams of a central recreation facility that would accommodate a wide variety of sporting activities, including a field house, a new pool and adequate storage facilities.
“It would be a dream to win that much money,” he said. “I'd be trying to pump it into every minor sport that's in town.”
A new multi-sport facility shouldn't be a burden on the taxpayers, Genz says, adding if he donated any winnings to the project it would serve the greater good of residents.
“We're all basically one big family at the end of the day,” he said, of the various sports teams. “I look at it like a passing it forward thing.”
