Legendary Western Coach Fitz-James Earns Spot in HOF
Considered the ‘Father’ of modern rowing in London, ON, Phil ‘Doc’ Fitz-James became the latest coach to be inducted into the Row Ontario Hall of Fame on Tuesday.
Fitz-James began his involvement in the London rowing scene in the early 1950’s after previously being involved with the Argonaut Rowing Club and Vancouver Rowing Club. In addition to his accomplishments as a coach, he helped build the London rowing scene to what is today and was one of the founding members of the London Rowing Club in 1954. While there had periodically been rowing on the Thames River prior to this, Fitz-James drove the initiation of rowing on Fanshawe Lake by working with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority after the dam was first built in 1953, which allowed the lake to be rowed on. He was also involved in the building of the Boathouse at Fanshawe Lake, investing countless hours and his own funds into the building.
A few short years later Fitz-James founded the rowing program at Western University where he would see tremendous success as a coach. In 1962, Fitz-James was one of the leaders that formed the Eastern Canadian Intercollegiate Rowing Association, which eventually lead to rowing becoming part of the OUAA and OWIAA (later changed to OUA) and modern university rowing in Canada. He was the head coach at Western until 1992 and led the Mustangs to 25 (14 men, 11 women) Ontario University Championships, the most of any program during that time with Queen’s a distant second with 11 total championships.
In 1968 he became head coach of the Middlesex-Western Rowing Club, a post he would hold until 2005. Throughout his tenure as head coach the MWRC was a small but mighty club, typically having around 15-30 members but experiencing success on the water more typical of a larger club. The crews he coached achieved 75 Royal Canadian Henley wins during that time. He also made his mark at the national level, coaching the national team in 1970 and 1979 and receiving the RCA Coach of the Year award in 1979. Many of the athletes he coached at Western or the MWRC have gone on to contribute as coaches and builders in Ontario rowing clubs throughout the province.
Fitz-James was a student of rowing and sought to become more knowledgeable and improve himself as a coach in any way he could. While coaching resources were few and far between in those days, he studied every resource he could and initiated conversations with other coaches on shared knowledge of coaching methods. He was a contributor to the initial coaching instruction manuals in Canada and was a noted expert in the coaching community in novice rowing.
Row Ontario will be announcing the inductions of the 2024 Hall of Fame class throughout the week as part of ‘Hall of Fame Week’. Yesterday Bill Donegan (Umpire) was announced as the first member of the 2024 HOF Class. Stay tuned the rest of this week for more announcements on the 2024 induction class of the Row Ontario Hall of Fame.
