By Chad Klassen

South Kam Titans football to honour the late Dave Gracey

Sep 20, 2018 | 5:05 PM

KAMLOOPS — The South Kam Titans’ football teams close out their preseason schedule at home on Saturday, but it won’t be an ordinary exhibition game. The high school will recognize the late Dave Gracey, who coached football at John Peterson for six years. 

“He made the players believe in themselves, especially at that young age when you’re in junior varsity, Grade 8-10. He just did such an amazing job of having players not place limitation on what they could do,” said one of his former players JP Lancaster, who’s now the head coach of the Titans senior football team. “When we were playing for him and coach Fox, we honestly felt we could run through a brick wall, all those football cliches.”

Gracey passed away suddenly from an apparent heart attack at age 50 in August 2016 while living in Japan. There is a commemorative plaque in Gracey’s name at the top of the stairs between the South Kam field and old John Peterson field. 

“Having been a player and playing for him, the impact the program had on my life, it’s huge. As a former player, that’s special,” noted Lancaster. “Then it means that much more trying to fill his shoes coaching at South Kam.”

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Dean MacDonald coached with Gracey at John Peterson before moving on to coach the South Kam football program until 2016. He says Gracey was all about making the kids better, not only football players but people. 

“He was a master motivator, passionate guy, a guy the kids all looked up to, and he taught them a lot of life lessons,” said MacDonald. “For me it’s just seeing all those kids now in their 20s and 30s who are grown up and have families of their own, seeing the passion they have for life and some other things that Dave talked of. A lot of these guys are still giving back to the program.”

Gracey was also instrumental in bringing junior football to Kamloops, originally the Kamloops Cowboys before the current Broncos came to be. 

The Titans hope alumni and the entire football community comes out to honour Gracey and celebrate the game. Lancaster says this year’s senior squad is young with mostly Grade 11 players, but they’re also a hungry group that reminds him a bit of Gracey. 

“I think we’re a pretty tough, hard-nosed team. We show up with our lunch pales,” he said. “The skill side is still coming together, but we have a crew of guys who go out and lay it out there. I think that’s going to keep up in a lot of ballgames, just our heart and physicality.”