A Sunday Read: With 1967’s champs a mirror to their own basketball souls, Van College’s 2026 Fighting Irish make own mark, ending the curse after 59 years with emphatic win over Dover Bay!

BY HOWARD TSUMURA

(Varsity Letters)

LANGLEY — This week, while preparing this story, the very story I so often wondered if I’d ever have the occasion to write, a scene remained stuck in my mind.

In it, with disbelief easily suspended, two basketball coaches, strangers from vastly different eras, meet in the real-time setting of the Langley Event Centre’s cavernous Arena Bowl, share a hug, then sink comfortably into the seats for an extended and animated conversation.

It’s Saturday night, March 7, 2026, just before midnight, and the only ones left in building are a small janitorial staff and these two guys… these two coaches.

A few hours earlier, in the B.C. senior boys Quad-A championship final, the Vancouver College Fighting Irish had snapped its senior varsity provincial title drought after 59 years, surging after the half en route to a 94-67 win over Nanaimo’s Dover Bay Dolphins.

In my mind’s first draft, that scene kept hanging around because any way you pared it, the narrative which accompanied the end result of the 80th annual B.C. senior boys Quad-A championship final was cinematic. Thus, casting these two coaches from drastically different eras of life and sport as the central figures seemed apropos.

Yet as this past week moved on, the more calls I made and more people I interviewed, the more I realized how much the core tenets of their shared pursuit would have, after maybe about a minute, made them fast friends.

Those coaches?

One coach is 36 years old, a part of mid-1990s Gen Z; the other, at the time of their meeting, his junior at age 28, born in the 1930s and classified today as one of the last of the war babies.

It’s my dreamscape, so I figuratively eavesdrop, turning an ear in their direction on a conversation punctuated by shared laughter and the realization that nothing ever really changes when you’re talking about the triumphs and the travails of B.C. boys high school basketball.

That 36-year-old?

He’s Ryan Shams, who along this time-space continuum is living in the present, and who this past Saturday, with a stoic sense of calm throughout four straight days of sudden-elimination play, led his No. 2-seeded Irish back from the brink of near-certain defeat to stun No. 6 Oak Bay of Victoria 70-69 in the semifinals on Friday, a chemistry-forging ‘for-the-ages’ kind of win which transformed the tournament’s most proven heartbreakers for over half a century into 2026’s team of destiny.

And the 28-year-old?

He’s Gene Rizak, a man who passed away Feb. 27, 2020 at the age of 79, and who I imagine at this moment in time just as he was the night of March 11, 1967 when the Irish won the single-tiered all-comers B.C. title, extending a hand and pulling Shams closer for the kind of hug that defines basketball brothers.

Consider that until just eight days ago, it had been three days shy of 59 years between B.C. senior boys basketball titles for the Fighting Irish… 59 years since Rizak, in his one-and-only season as Irish head coach, led his team past its arch-rivals, the crosstown David Thompson Trojans 56-41 in the title game played at a packed War Memorial Gymnasium on the UBC campus.

Quite suddenly, a book-end which had stood alone for well over a half-century had found its matching pair, in turn creating both preface and afterword to the nitty-gritty of a War and Peace struggle that was already well into its third generation of futility

Just try and imagine, if you might, that from 1968 through 2025, a span of 57 B.C. boys championships tournaments, that the Irish qualified 39 times for The Big Dance yet never once copped the winner’s share of hardware… of course until just eight days ago.

“So, what’d you think, coach?” Shams might say to the Rizak, who in turn might reply “… coach, you had your guys ready for March.”

And from there the chat would begin.

Without a doubt, somewhere along the way the chatter would turn to 2026’s Ashton Wong, a 6-foot-4 wing-guard-forward-post who scored 17 of his game-high 37 points en route to tournament MVP honours, and of course to 1967’s Bob Beaupre, the 6-foot-2 Irish senior who in the finale 59 years ago led VC by scoring nine of his team-high 13 points in the second half.

So much about our game has changed since March Madness vintage ’67 — the move from eight- to- 10-minute quarters, the addition of the three-point line for the 1984-85 season, and the constant debate about the state of the game’s fundamental skills then versus now — yet what has not changed is the sanctity of teamwork, that intangible state of shared mind-and-body where hard work and imbedded trust in each other manifests as a tidal wave of chemistry.

It’s so elusive to describe, to harness and to bottle… and yet when you see it happen, especially in the last game played on the last day of the season, well, you just know.

THE THING NO CHEAT-CODE CAN CONQUER 

Back on December 6, following a loss to Chilliwack’s G.W. Graham Grizzlies on the final day of the Tsumura Basketball Invitational, Vancouver College had lost its third straight game, surely putting most among a majority who would have ruled out any thought of a provincial title, and all of this despite the fact that it was just under two weeks into the new season.

After beating Lord Tweedsmuir to open their run in the TBI’s Super 16 pool, the Irish proceeded to drop games to MEI (66-64), Argyle (74-63) and then the Grizzlies (71-63).

As much as those losses came against quality foes, hindsight now clearly shows that from Vancouver College’s vantage point, it was the starting point from which to chronicle a rise from rock bottom to peak performance in precisely 90 days.

“You know what?” began Shams, literally moments after his team finished cutting down the champions’ net. “It’s funny, because at that time at TBI, I knew we had the pieces to do it. We just had to figure it out, right? We really learned how we’d have to play together and trust the coaches and trust each other. We just learned so much from that, and I really believe you kind of need those early speed bumps and losses to grow as much as you possibly can.”

Perhaps all of that would have been part of the actual conversation both Shams and Rizak might have actually had if our fictionalized meeting had ever actually happened.

And yet if you look hard enough, you get ample evidence that the 1967 team is indeed a forefather of 2026’s.

Back in his Grade 11 year, a sturdy Irish player named John Mills sat in a reserve role on the Vancouver College bench.

And while he would play a huge role in the team’s first of 58 failed title runs the very next season, throughout the 1966-67 campaign, Mills did a lot of watching and a lot of listening.

Talk to him today and one of the first stories he tells, despite a gap of two-plus generations, seems to confirm how similarly wired the two teams actually were.

“We were favoured the whole year long, and its the very first game of the year,” began Mills, whose resume would later touch every level of the game in both B.C. and at the national level, from CIAU national titles with the UBC Thunderbirds as a player in 1970 and 1972, to later helping lead Canada Basketball in several roles, including as its executive director.

“We went into David Thompson and they turned out to be a fabulous team,” Mills added of the Trojans, coached by Mike Potkonjak and led by its tenacious guard Jim Chapman and the smooth-scoring Bill Stebbings.

“And we lose… we lose the opening game,” Mills says with feeling. “This is the team that’s supposed to win everything. And afterwards, the guys are crying in a locker room. And this was just the end of of November. We’re thinking ‘Oh, we’re not as good as we thought,’ and Rizak comes in and he just says ‘When do you guys want to win? You want to win now? You want to win in March? Because my plan is we win in March.’ He put it in perspective.”

From that day forward, Vancouver College was perfect against all Canadian competition. Their only loss came in January of ’68 at its own Emerald Invitational when one of Washington’s perennial powers, Seattle’s O’Dea, took a 10-point win in an Irish vs. Irish battle.

Current Vancouver College assistant coach Isaiah Solomon, now 32, didn’t have to look too far back to realize that the 2010-11 Vancouver College team he played on, one which lost to Richmond’s R.C. Palmer, had like all of the other Irish teams over the past 58 years, finally exorcised its collective past.

“When I was playing 15 years ago in this exact game, I carried that pressure and that really affected us,” said Solomon whose team took a 19-2 first quarter lead on a Palmer team coached by Paul Eberhardt, the West Vancouver coach who served as the title game broadcast’s colour analyst, and who himself that same day had gathered his former Griffins players for a 15-year championship reunion just prior to the Quad-A final.

“So I just told these guys, just play loose,” said Solomon. “Like, just play loose, have fun, be present, enjoy the moment. And whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen.”

The 2025-26 Irish certainly had more blemishes (28-9 overall, including losses to St. Pat’s and one each also to league foe St. George’s, B.C. Triple-A finalist L.A. Matheson of Surrey and Edmonton’s Strathcona), yet what Rizak felt to be true about his team at the start of his season was effectively the same way Shams saw his now freshly-minted champs at the same juncture.

After his team’s win over Dover Bay in the title game, Shams was asked if the team’s late-season turnaround came because of some schematic change.

“No, it was nothing scheme,” he was quick to reply. “It was just playing together. And playing for each other. We just stepped that up, right? So that’s all it really was. I really think that in high school basketball, it’s all about what group can come together and play for each other the most.”

It worked in 1967. It worked in 2026.

FROM TBI’S DECEMBER WOES TO 2:29 OF… MAGIC

There was a moment midway through the third quarter of the 2026 title game when Dover Bay, which had trailed by just five points (40-35) at the half, appeared set to take a deep run at the Irish.

After falling behind by as many as 12 points to open the second half, Landen Ross’ fast break lay-up once again had the Dolphins knocking on the door, trailing by just eight points at 53-45 with 4:45 still left in the frame.

Yet that’s when the Irish picked the perfect time to play their best extended stretch of basketball the entire tournament, reeling off a breathtaking 13-0 run over a span of just 2:29 of game clock.

In fact if you were putting a time capsule together of everything Vancouver College represented as a basketball team, at both ends of the floor, it was all there over that stretch.

Micah Mayott, the tournament’s Top Defensive Player, was richly deserving of that honour, but he also showed how dangerous he could be offensively, starting the run with a second-chance jumper at the edge of the key. Then, after a defensive rebound by Lucas Tan-Ngo allowed the Irish senior to initiate transition, he found teammate Ethan Chiu in front of the Irish bench at the other end of the court. Chiu wisely made the extra cross-court pass to Mayott for a wide-open splash from three for a 58-45 lead.

Ashton Wong then intercepted a pass into the paint by Dover Bay’s Tanner Standerwick on the ensuing Dolphins’ possession, rocketing the ball to Tan-Ngo who in turn found Chiu sprinting to the same baseline corner where on the possession before he had found an open teammate.

This time, however, Chiu took the shot himself and threaded the needle.

Its ‘blink-of-an-eye’, 1-2-3 coast-to-coast, defence-to-offence transition was capped by catch-and-shoot three by Chiu. And as he high-fived his bench and mimicked Clark Kent’s historic Superman reveal with his team now on top 61-45 with 3:32 left in the third, that shot felt like the game’s dagger.

The Dolphins called for time and at that point, game analyst Eberhardt was asked what he’d be saying if he was Vancouver College head coach Ryan Shams, and Dover Bay head coach Darren Seaman.

“The first thing I’m doing if I’m in the College huddle right now is I’m telling the guys to calm down, still a long game and because you don’t want your guys to be over-stimulated. They’re so excited,” said Eberhardt. “They’ve they still got a job to do. And I’d be telling my guys if I’m Dover ‘Hey guys, hey, listen, we’re struggling from three right now, but we’re a great three-point shooting team. Shoot with confidence. Don’t worry. We’ll start knocking them down.’ Just trying to build their confidence up because their body language, you can see it. It’s kind of sagging right now because they’re shooting so poorly from the perimeter and they need (someone) to knock it down. Then maybe that’ll open it up for the rest of them.”

Yet the 13-0 run continued, with a beautiful basket off a baseline reverse lay-in by Tan-Ngo, and then another three-pointer by the ice-veined Chiu, who was off-charts efficient, finishing his night 5-of-6 from the field including 3-of-3 from three, with two steals and three of his four rebounds coming off offensive glass.

Yet to these eyes, what was equally important or perhaps even more so on Chiu’s drive-capping three-pointer was what the player delivering the ball to him from the high post — Ashton Wong — had come to represent over the first three quarters of play, and how that would ultimately impact the fourth.

FROM OFF-SEASON REINVENTION TO 2026 MVP

Back in 1967 tournament, a Vancouver College player did not win the MVP award. Instead it went to one of the tournament’s most dominant players ever.

Ron Thorsen of Prince George, the 6-foot-1 guard who took home top individual honours before later playing three seasons with the UBC Thunderbirds where he was named a three-time CIAU all-Canadian first team selection and the MVP at the 1972 nationals. In fact both he and Vancouver College’s Mills played under head coach Dr. Peter Mullins at UBC.

In 2026, however, there was a Vancouver College player picked MVP, and it wasn’t too much longer after that brilliant high-post pass to Ethan Chiu near the end of the third quarter that the 6-foot-4 Ashton Wong, who went on to score a game-high 37 points, was deservingly named the Quad-A tournament’s top player.

Said Eberhardt of Wong during the fourth quarter of the title game when he scored 19 of his 37: “He’s feeling it tonight, and he’s doing a great job of getting the ball in the high post, squaring up, maybe a little shot fake and drive for a layup, or a little shot fake and drive for a pull-up, even spun back a couple times. You know in big games like this, obviously, we kind of know who the players are, but there’s gonna be one or two that are just going to give that little bit extra, and that’s certainly what he’s doing for the Irish tonight.”

Truth be told, if you had watched the Irish all of last season and then saw nothing of the Simon Fraser-bound Wong until Saturday night’s final, you wouldn’t have thought they were the same player.

When probed by his interviewer on that topic after winning the MVP trophy, Wong couldn’t have agreed more.

“The summer of 2025 is when I really took myself seriously,” said Wong, who as the tallest player within his team’s Class of 2026 had tried over the years leading up to his senior season to centre the foundation of his game around power and being able to affect change down low. “Then, I started to notice a change in my body.”

What did he do?

In a nutshell whatever it took for him to increase his athleticism. And it was so successful that when he references parts of his plan, his memory is crystal clear, despite the fact that he was still being congratulated by teammates and fans on the crowded LEC Arena Bowl floor after helping his team win the championship.

“I made a plan for myself,” he stated. “I wrote down 10 goals I wanted to achieve from June 16th to September 7th. I accomplished eight of those 10 goals, and I completely transformed myself.” He put his food choices under the microscope, he got himself a trainer… “and I cut out oily and fried foods, and then I started running daily…”

The rest of the plan?

Details. Details.

For his part, Wong has never forgotten the way Shams brought him into the senior group as a 10th grader and immediately entrusted in him his personal stamp as a leader of the future.

“Ashton was the guy that as soon as I got the coaching job, I knew how good he could be, so I wanted him to get adjusted to senior as soon as we could and it all cumulated in that championship, and now he’s the provincial MVP,” said Shams. “And his versatility was so key. People didn’t know what he was gonna do today. Shoot it, drive it, whatever.”

Wong added that his biggest revelation heading into his senior season was the amount of work he had to invest in himself just to be able to put himself in the position to do what he ultimately did in the title game.

“If you look at me last year and look at me today, I’m two completely different players,” he said, the best part of which made him a true triple-threat presence. And thus as the third quarter gave way to the fourth in the title game, Vancouver College had established its beachhead, that all-important fulcrum from which all else could pivot.

Without him, and with rhythm and flow in the stride of the younger, but supremely talented and willing Dolphins led by its incredibly talented Grade 11 point guard Joe Linder (23 points, eight rebounds, six assists, perhaps the second half is a different story?

The Dolphins, looking very likely to start 2026-27 as Quad-A’s preseason No. 1, return every member of its time shy of senior Ross (nine points in the final) and high school big man rookie Yukun Li (2), and that includes Linder’s fellow starters Dane Schmidt (25), Ahmed Eltahaan )(6), and Standerwick (2). “We just couldn’t hit our shots,” said Dover Bay head coach Seaman afterwards after his team went a very uncharacteristic 4-for31 from three and 13-of-24 from the free-throw line. “I don’t know. We just didn’t have the level of concentration it took to be in that game. We put a ton of time in shooting, so I’m kind of just scratching my head. I guess we got to put more time in.”

FROM BROTHER FINCH TO GENE RIZAK

Brother Francis Robert Finch knew it, and it wasn’t too so after that Gene Rizak realized it as well.

But no one outside of the actual core of seniors on the 1966-67 Vancouver College Fighting Irish varsity basketball team knew of their collective potential more than the small Grade 11 group one year behind them.

“Right from the time that I got there, as a Grade Four (in 1959-60), I mean, the group ahead of us, the ones in Grade 5, were a very, very talented group,” remembers Denis Kelly, a 1968 Irish grad who a quarterback on the school’s famed football teams, but was on the bench of the 1967 B.C. champion basketball team as a talented reserve in-waiting.

Later that same year, Canadians would hit the stretch drive to our nation’s 100th birthday, and quite famously in local circles, both the Irish hoopers and the Stanley Cup-winning Toronto Maple Leafs would unknowingly report to their respective training camps ready to begin title droughts that would simply defy imagination.

Brother Finch, who had previously led the tradition-laden St. Leo Lions program to two Chicago Catholic League titles, and who would later have that school’s hallowed gymnasium named in his honour, came to Vancouver College for a six-year head coaching run in 1960.

After the 1965-66 season, however, the Christian Brothers of Ireland asked him to return to the U.S. to a new posting, and upon his departure, the school promoted its 28-year-old assistant, a former point guard from Windsor, Ont., named Gene Rizak, who had exhausted his fifth-and-final season of CIAU eligibility in 1964-65 across town with the UBC Thunderbirds, despite no prior head-coaching experience.

“He was a little guy, 5-foot-6, maybe 5-7 and he had a kind of a squeaky voice,” remembers Kelly, 75, who would later focus on football as the quarterback at Simon Fraser on his way to becoming one of the most enduring head coaches in B.C. high school history with notable stops at Vancouver College, W.J. Mouat and currently Notre Dame.

As part of the enduring tradition of B.C. high school coaches, Kelly, is currently heading up a Notre Dame senior varsity coaching staff which includes assistants George Oswald, 79, and Jerry Mulliss, 80. Their combined 234 years can challenge any high school trio in any sport in North America. And Kelly just needs a simple cue to bring those Vancouver College days of the 1960s back to full life.

“And (Rizak) was playing with the Vancouver IGA Grocers (three time men’s senior national champs), so he would come on the floor for practices with us and be out there for the whole practice. And he was the best player out there,” Kelly continued. “He was quite an inspiration.”

“But you know, the thing I remember most about Gene Rizak is that one day after practice, he sank 94 free throws in a row.”

Rizak was joined on the bench by the school’s young head varsity football coach at the time.

Bob DeJulius would later become the co-coach and later head football coach at Simon Fraser, then later found Surrey’s Holy Cross Regional Secondary School. 

It is astonishing the level to which the 85-year-old DeJulius can recount what seem to be near-daily events from in and around that time period.

In fact the way that current Irish coach Shams can provide an instant scouting report on his own players, like guard Tan-Ngo, Chiu, Mayott, Dylan Arabiana and Nathan Chen, or forward types like John Antony, Wong and Isaac Holt among others, so too can DeJulius give you key remembrances off the top off his head for the five 1967 starters.

Jack McLaughlin, 5-foot-10, 145 pound guard — “I remember the championship game against David Thompson and they had that guard (Jim) Chapman (who later played in the Montreal Expos farm system), and I don’t know how many times during the tournament that he’d shoot, miss the shot, then get his own rebound and score. I told Jack ‘You got to keep him off the boards, and if he gets his shot, he get his shot. But don’t let him get anything else.’ Jack did that perfectly and that characterized to me what the whole team was about… doing what they were supposed to do.”

John Beaton, 6-2, 180 pound forward — “John is one of the best athletes I have ever coached. To give you an example, when he was in Grade 9, and his dad told me this story, the Vancouver Firefighters had a (senior men’s) team in the old Pacific Coast Soccer League, and John played with them (as a Grade 9)”

Brian Longpre, 6-foot-1, 170 pound forward — “The only other guy I could compare him to was (Lui) Passaglia (at Notre Dame, and later SFU who also played both sports) because Brian would never make a mistake. You could use him as a forward or a guard and he was so intelligent. He went on to become a lawyer.”

Bob Beaupre, 6-foot-3, 175 pound forward — “He might have been our best player. He made the first all-star team that year. We were not an exceptionally big team that year, but could really rebound and he was our top scorer that year.”

Dave Hislop, 6-foot-2, 195 pound centre — “Dave didn’t have a real shooting ability, but he could rebound like hell and play defence. You gotta go underneath in basketball and rebound and Dave would always do that. A really good defensive player.

The sixth and seventh players? The Noble twins, Bob and Rich, Grade 11s like both Kelly and Mills.

“That was the thing about this team… we were so interchangeable at guard and forward,” said De Julius of an Irish team that dressed 10 for the championship game win over David Thompson, which featured not only Chapman, but the smooth-playing guard Bill Stebbings, who would later coach North Delta’s Seaquam Seawks into the then top-tiered Triple-A final against the juggernaut Richmond Colts in the 1988 title game at the PNE Agrodome.

APPRECIATION FOR A CHARACTER-SHAPING 58 YEARS

Although his coaching and playing career has been largely centred around football, Bob De Julius thinks about the 1967 Irish basketball team every day.

“In that picture, I was 26 years old,” he exclaims, speaking of the classic post-game photo of the team (pictured above) in which he stands second from the left in the back row), his age and end of the 59-year streak adding up perfectly to his present-day age.

“I don’t have a lot of wall space where I am but it’s front and centre,” he continues of the select few along to pass muster like Holy Cross’ 2007 Subway Bowl top-tiered B.C. championship football team featuring UBC’s soon-to-be Hec Crighton award-winning QB Billy Green, and the 1970 Simon Fraser football team he co-coached which went a perfect 8-0.

“I’ll never forget those guys,” says De Julius says of the ’67 Irish. “Remembering how they did it, and then just wondering when they were going to do it again.. and you know, that’s just a beautiful thing.”

Mills and Kelly are both still avid fans, and while Mills attended last weekend’s title game, Kelly was at home watching via livestream.

And independently of each other, like only former high school teammates can do, each pointed to Friday’s miracle comeback rally against Oak Bay as the moment they knew destiny was set to smile on the purple and gold on the last day of the 2025-26 season.

“They lost to (then-R.C. Palmer head coach Paul) Eberhardt in 2011,” remembers Mills of Vancouver College’s last finals appearance, a 71-63 comeback win by the Griffins who themselves rallied from a 19-2 first quarter deficit in the very first title game played at the Langley Events Centre.

“I’ve been there for all of them,” he said, adding the last-second heroics of Emerson Murray for St. George’s in the Saints’ 2009 93-92 win at the Agrodome over the Irish, and even the 2008 loss to eventual champion Yale in the semifinals, when the Irish blew a 64-54 lead with 3:54 left. In that game the Lions’ Caleb Klassen made one of the most dramatic steals in tourney history, racing 70 feet down court with Irish defenders giving chase, sinking the winning lay-in with 9/10ths of a second remaining for a 67-65 win. Yale then beat WRCA the next night for its second title in three seasons.

“And so over the last 59 years, there has been every possible variation of being close and losing,” added Mills.

Yet as mentioned, both watched Friday’s improbable comeback in the Final Four against Oak Bay, and no one could sum up the moment better than Varsity Letters’ own Dan Kinvig: “Left for dead in their 4A semifinal match-up vs. the Oak Bay Bays, trailing by 11 points with 90 seconds left in regulation, Vancouver College closed the game on a stunning 12-0 run, snatching a 70-69 victory from the jaws of defeat.”

“What they did, overcoming that (Oak Bay) lead at the end,” began Kelly, “well, I just looked at that and I said ‘This is it’ because you don’t do that in the semis and not finish it off. It was an amazing comeback from 11 points that they overcame. But they just stuck with it. They put on that press and the end, made those turnovers and then they hit shots. It was unbelievable.”

Of course none more clutch than Lucas Tan-Ngo’s three-pointer one step outside the top of the arc arc with the defender doing his job. The shot of the tournament fell through with 19.1 seconds left to tie the game 69-69 and set the stage for Ethan Chiu’s two ice-veined free throws with 3.1 seconds left. Chiu made the first, missed the second and before anyone could take another breath the Irish had survived by a point, punching their tickets to the final.

And it’s what Mills saw after Tan-Ngo’s game-tying three on Friday that had him convinced the wait was now just about 24 hours away.

“I saw an interesting angle from someone shooting video for social media,” Mills began of the telling view he got into the Irish huddle from behind the bench, with the head coach facing in his direction.

“The kids are excited, it’s a time out, and (Shams) went right to work,” said Mills. “He commanded the moment. This was something I saw the next day. It gave me confidence, you know, that he was good in that moment, right at that time when you need to instil confidence in your players. They need to see the confidence in you.”

How much more amazing are 2026’s moments when viewed through the rearview mirror by the few who actually experienced the 1967 win as young student-athletes or coaches? For this privilege, we can only thank those I endearing call our treasured grey-haired magnificos.

And what of all the coaches and the players from the tough times in-between, and there were plenty of them?

Thanks to B.C. high school boys hoops historian Ken Winslade were able to confirm that between the 1967 title and the newly-annexed 2026 title, the Irish qualified for the B.C. tournament in the aforementioned 39 of 58 seasons.

Vancouver College sports historian Bruce Jagger also points out that over than same title-less span, the program had played in five championship games and 19 Final Fours.

The pressure and expectations of the fan base has always been unlike any other high school in this province, and that was not lost on one of the best and longest-serving Irish coaches to do his thing over the 58 seasons prior to this one just now complete.

“I’ll tell you this story,” begins Bob Corbett, who coached V.C. for nine seasons (1990-91 through 1997-98). “We had just lost in the semifinals one year, and it was a tough loss. I walk up onto the concourse at the Agrodome, and I’ve got an alum right in my face telling me everything I did wrong. This is 20 minutes after a very tough loss. So you just had to learn to deal with things like that. It wasn’t by malice. They weren’t trying to be mean. They just wanted to win.”

All of that to a coach who got his team into the Final Four on six of the eight occasions over a nine-season span that he qualified the Irish for the Big Dance.

And what of Vancouver College’s first title-winning basketball coach since Gene Rizak?

It’s tough to get the full scoop on Shams’ ascent to V.C. head coach.

Maybe it fits the feel of the folk story it is that a certain narrative began to gain some legs of its own over the course of the Irish’s four days in March… that the seemingly unflappable and wise-beyond-his -years Shams actually started out as the manager of the team while in high school.

Turns out that isn’t true.

What is true is that over his Grade 11 and 12 seasons at Vancouver College, Shams, part of the school’s Class of 2008, had no real connection to the basketball team.

“I was a fan,” he confirmed after the title win of his final two years of high school.

But he was also a sponge for knowledge, the kind of student of the game who knew that he was surrounded by great mentors, one of whom was the school’s former longtime head varsity football coach Todd Bernett.

“The thing that makes me most proud of him is that he did his thing, like from the true bottom,” said Bernett, on hand to congratulate the kid who in the 2006 and 2007 fall seasons was a wide receiver on his senior team. “I am proud of the way he has done it because he’s a gym rat himself and he expects the boys to be as committed as he is. He upholds character and he builds better men.”

And now, as the weeks turn into months, it won’t be long before another challenge is placed in front of the new B.C. champs, the same task their forbearers faced in the fall following its win over David Thompson.

By the start of the 1967-68 season, the cast at Vancouver College had changed about as quickly as it had come together the season prior.

Rizak’s teammate on the IGA Grocers, none other than then-Simon Fraser men’s head coach Jon-Lee Kootnekoff, had talked Rizak into joining him as an assistant coach within the fledgling program atop Burnaby Mountain.

Mills and Kelly were rising to status as Irish senior starters who would suffer a heartbreaking last-second loss to the Sentinel Spartans in the 1968 B.C. tournament quarterfinals, one which would open its next era by moving its semifinals and finals out of War Memorial Gymnasium to new Pacific Coliseum which had officially opened two months ahead of the ’68 tourney. That’s where the likes of Lars Hansen and the Centennial Centennial would lure massive crowds into the soon-to-be new home of the NHL’s expansion Vancouver Canucks.

And DeJulius, the Irish assistant basketball coach and head football coach, with what would turn out to be no end of excellent teaching and coaching opportunities in his future, elected himself to leave for new challenges both professionally and educationally.

Yet the single most unforgettable thing DeJulius remembers following the conclusion of that magical 1966-67 season were the words and the offer he got to remain at Vancouver College and assume head coaching duties with the varsity basketball team in the fall.

“One of the reasons I left, two weeks before I was going to get married (to his wife Noreen) is they wanted to me to give up the football and coach the basketball team, and one of the things they said to me was ‘There’s another championship (basketball) team there next year’. I look back now and I can’t believe it took this long.”

Fifty-nine years is the best part of a life well lived, and to those who follow the twists and turns every B.C. high school basketball season, the best advice you can follow is to live it all in the moment.

We all have our alma maters, our favourite schools, and each year when this tournament rolls around, the chance is there to live and die on every shot.

Its pull is unmistakable, its grip almighty.

And on the rare occasion that the span between celebrations equals a life well-lived, like it did this season, those with a personal stake gain an even deeper perspective of what this game actually means.

I opened this story a long while back, asking for your suspension of disbelief as a team’s past came out of time to meet its present, but what actually happened on the court in the last game of our last game of the season was even more incredible.

And so from 1967 to 2026, and from Gene Rizak to Ryan Shams, keep betting against the impossible at your own peril.

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