John Kazakoff will best be remembered in the sports community for his three decades of teaching the game of baseball to Prince George kids. As much as he loved baseball, Kazakoff spent a good chunk of his life trying to improve his own golf game.
He was known to spend hours in the off-season in his garage practicing his swing and made regular trips to Phoenix to play in the winter months. Unfortunately for Kazakoff, all that extra work didn't really pay off. He had all the gadgets - including a range finder - and they did nothing to lengthen his drives or his improve his accuracy.
Speaking at Saturday's memorial service in honour of his friend of 40 years, Jamie Mould told the crowd of about 350 about Kazakoff's legendary Tin Cup episode while playing in the Simon Fraser Open at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club.
"He put six balls in a row in the water and took a 17 on the 17th hole," said Mould. "With John playing with us, the course record for the fastest round was not in jeopardy."
Born in Nelson on Feb. 26, 1945, Kazakoff and his family moved to rural Greeley, B.C., near Revelstoke, where they set up a sheep ranch. When he was eight, all the buildings on the property were wiped out by a fire and he and his sister Verna were sent to live with relatives in Saskatchewan, eventually settling in Steveston.
Kazakoff started playing Little League baseball in New Westminster and was a good overall athlete, also playing hockey and basketball while in high school. Always a catcher, in 1963 he earned a baseball scholarship to Skagit Valley junior college in Mount Vernon, Wash. That experience would prove valuable when he was coaching Prince George teams to back-to-back provincial titles in 1986 (senior Babe Ruth) and 1987 (junior Babe Ruth).
"I guess I was quite fortunate that the coaching I had through the league right through college was pretty good coaching, so I learned a fair amount," Kazakoff told Prince George This Week in December 2004.
Kaz - as he was commonly known - and his wife Ann married in 1968 and they moved to Prince George in 1974, where they had two children, Dean and Tasha. Kazakoff loved gardening and was meticulous about his grass. He was known to walk his lawn in a grid pattern holding a beer in one hand and a spray bottle of Killex in the other. The weeds didn't stand a chance.
Kazakoff and Dennis Roy formed the Prince George Grays in 1996 in what was a trial season for the Grays in the junior provincial league. Being a car salesman at Prince George Motors, where he worked for 15 years, Kazakoff knew a lot of people in the city and as general manager of the Grays he wasn't afraid to ask his loyal customers to buck up to help fund the team's travel costs.
"He did a lot of hard work and he deserved what he got," said Roy. "We used to drive all night to get home to get the kids back for school and I think they appreciated being given the chance."
There's no doubt having a junior team in the city helped Grays pitchers Simon Stoner and Ryan Lupul turn the heads of major league scouts. While playing for the Grays Stoner got drafted twice (Toronto Blue Jays in 1997 and Anaheim Angels in 1998) while the Texas Rangers picked Lupul in 2000.
Winning didn't come easily for the Grays. They started out 0-19 in their inaugural 1996 season and it wasn't until 2000 that they had their first winning season, a 25-7 run to the regular-season title. But the best was yet to come in 2002, when they won their only league championship, defeating Kelowna 7-5 in the final, played on home turf at Monty Gabriele Park.
"We never knew if we were going to ever do it or not, but we weren't going to quit trying," Kazakoff told Citizen sports editor Jim Swanson at the time. "All these years later, here we are. It feels pretty good, especially for those guys (the players)."
The Grays had an all-star cast which included pitchers Adam Walton, Dan Westle, Brad Deutch, Chris Chabot, Conor Whitely and Corey Bonnar. Jason Docherty and Vaughn Dhenin were their top hitters and they got solid defence from the likes of Connor Flynn, Kevin Massicotte and Devon O'Brien.
"Maybe as far as talent goes, this group might not match up, but the mindset is there," said Kazakoff. "I don't know what happened three or four weeks ago, but they all of a sudden started believing in themselves and in each other. They didn't let the little things bother them, and the end result is what you saw today."
Logan Lampert played on Freeman Park Little League all-star teams Kazakoff coached in the early 1980s and played shortstop on the team that went to Victoria and won the senior (16-18-year-old) Babe Ruth provincial title in 1986. It was the first time any Prince George baseball team had won a B.C. championship.
"He was always very demanding but always very respectful and we all looked up to him," said Lampert. "He was very knowledgeable of the game and I think a lot of the success we had was because we had good coaching when we were kids. Kaz knew what he was doing and knew the fundamentals of the game. It was an honour to play with John and we had a lot of fun."
Kazakoff's success with kids on the ball field led to a trip to Japan in 1989 coaching Team B.C. at the 14-15-year-old world championship. Darrell Gervais had Kazakoff as his coach for four years before they won the 14-15-year-old junior Babe Ruth provincial title in Prince George in 1987.
"He always wanted you to play hard and the favourite thing he taught me was not to give three cheers at the end of the game, just go shake hands like a man," said Gervais. "From 13 years on, win or lose, we never had to give three cheers, just shake hands. Another thing he'd say was 'don't be sorry, just don't do it again.'"
Kazakoff and the Grays represented the province in 2002 at the junior national championship in Corner Brook, Nfld., where they finished fifth. Gary (Chub) Williams helped coach the Grays for seven years and saw the effect Kazakoff had on his players.
"He was a mentor to many young men and he did more than teach baseball, he taught them life and how to enjoy life," said Williams.
Kazakoff developed cancer shortly after he was inducted into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame in 2005 and battled the disease for 10 years before he died at age 70 Oct. 3 at Prince George Rotary Hospice House.
In the obituary, Kazakoff's family requested that in lieu of flowers or donations people instead volunteer in the community.
"That would be a great way to remember Kaz," said Mould, "because he certainly made this a better community because of his contributions."
