They had just nine players on their roster and were competing against the largest high schools in the province. So when the Kelly Road Roadrunners won the 1986 B.C. championship in senior boys volleyball, they accomplished something truly remarkable.
Thirty years have passed since the Roadrunners outplayed the NorKam Saints and walked off the Saints' own court with a 13-15, 15-5, 15-11, 15-9 victory. The Kelly Road boys are now men - roughly 46 and 47 - and they're about to reunite for a special match on Friday. As part of an anniversary celebration, they'll take on the current Kelly Road team to open the school's annual senior boys volleyball tournament.
The idea was hatched by 1986 team member Paul Simmonds. Even though he and the rest of the old guys have had a handful of practices, he's concerned the Kelly Road teens may have the advantage when it comes to endurance, and possibly, skill.
With that in mind, Simmonds isn't averse to using a little psychological warfare to enhance his side's chance of winning.
"I've got some old '80s rock music that I'm going to bring out because that's what we used to play before every game," Simmonds said. "And I'm hoping that after (the 2016 Roadrunners) have been listening to Justin Bieber for the last five years that this rock music will play with their minds and we can get them on that."
As for those practices, they've been led by original coach Wally Brown. And yes, they've been a bit painful for some of the vintage Roadrunners.
"I had some swelling in my knee that finally just went down a couple days ago," said Simmonds, who was a middle blocker back in his day. "A535 is my friend, and Advil. But, all in all, we did pretty well. I haven't really even played since high school - a couple games and that's it. A couple of the other guys play in a league."
Simmonds came up with the idea for the volleyball get-together when he started seeing social media posts about Kelly Road's 1987 grad reunion, set for next summer. He sent out a couple text messages and word of the volleyball plan quickly spread.
On Friday, Simmonds will be alongside 1986 teammates Bill Cardinal, Shane Sabatino, Norm Kershaw, Mike Todoruk, Dan Drezet, Stephen Matyas and manager Alanna Rosler. Two other players - Brian Ruff and Stuart Kamstra - will miss out on the fun. Ruff lives in the United States and couldn't make the trip and Kamstra couldn't be reached.
Cardinal - an intimidating power hitter who was MVP of the 1986 provincials - traveled here from Kelowna and Sabatino came from Edmonton. The rest of the attending players still live in Prince George.
Brown, as in the old days, will be on the sidelines. Ever the coach, he already has a plan in place should one of his middle-aged Roadrunners fall victim to injury.
"I'm going to have my son (Tim Brown) as a spare in case somebody goes down," he said with a laugh.
Coach Brown is thankful to Simmonds for sparking the reunion of what was a tightly-knit group of players.
"They had a lot of success, all those tournaments we went to in those senior years, in Grade 11 and 12," Brown said. "You lived together all fall. They were a good bunch - some of the teachers gave me accolades and awards for putting up with them, because some of them could give you a bit of a hard time."
In the fall of 1985, when the core of the team was in Grade 11, Kelly Road claimed provincial silver at the single-A level. Then, the B.C. Secondary School Boys Volleyball Association changed the classification numbers for the 1986-87 school year and the Roadrunners were suddenly in the double-A category, which put them in the same group as B.C.'s biggest schools.
The Roadrunners actually lost to the PGSS Polars in the 1986 zone final and went into provincials ranked fourth (the Polars were second). Once in Kamloops for the tournament, however, Kelly Road was unstoppable. In the semifinal round, the Roadrunners downed third-seeded Mount Douglas of Victoria, a team they hadn't beaten before, and that put them into the final against host NorKam. Not surprisingly, a large crowd came out to watch, and the sixth-seeded Saints rode the home-court vibe to the narrow win in the first set. But the Roadrunners would not be denied the title.
"I wasn't really worried because we were better than them, and we won the next three," Brown said. "It was the loudest provincials that I ever attended. One side of the gym was all out-of-town teams and they all took our side. And of course NorKam was the local team so one side of the gym was cheering for them. Even going to provincials after that, parents would come up and say that that was by far the most exciting final they had ever seen."
The 1986 provincial championship for senior boys volleyball remains the only one in Kelly Road's history. And that fact makes some 30-year-old words of Brown's prophetic.
In a Nov. 24, 1986 story in The Citizen, he was quoted by sports reporter Don Schaffer as saying, "As a coach, I know this kind of thing doesn't come along that often, so you have to enjoy it when it does. It was a nice, neat happening."
Friday's match is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. in the Kelly Road gymnasium. Students and other fans are being asked to bring non-perishable food items, which will later be donated to the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
