Football was in his blood

Known for his cheeky nickname, George Wilson left an indelible mark on the St. Vital sports scene

By: Ashley Prest

 

‘Peckerhead’ was his name and football was his game.

George Wilson was widely known and loved for his amateur football service in Winnipeg — but he was famous for his nickname.

It’s a word that’s considered profane in many circles, but in Wilson’s world and the amateur football community in Winnipeg, it was a term of endearment.

"George had the habit of calling everybody around him ‘Peckerhead,’" said Blair Schapansky, 73, who was Wilson’s friend for 51 years since Schapansky was the centre on the St. Vital Bulldogs senior men’s football team and Wilson was a coach.

"The first thing he said to me when I walked into the Bulldogs clubhouse in 1967 was, ‘Hey Peckerhead, go talk to the coach over there.’ He didn’t mean it as an insult. He said that to everybody."

It would always bring a grin. It meant that you were in, welcomed to the fold, a member of the family.

"So we gave him the nickname of Peckerhead," Schapansky, said. "In ’67, ’68, ’69, when he was around with the Bulldogs when I was there, he always had a golden Lab named Whisky with him. Daughter Tannis and son Geordie were always there too, at practices and at games."

After a lifetime of involvement in football starting as a player and encompassing volunteer roles as a coach, manager and in many executive positions, George died on July 10 at age 84.

In St. Vital, George was involved in football for at least 20 years, serving in various volunteer capacities as an executive member and two years as club president. He also served as president of Football Manitoba and as national vice-president of Football Canada.

George left a football legacy that includes his two children, Geordie, 52, and Tannis, 50, who have followed in their dad’s footsteps. Both have played key roles in helping develop amateur football in Manitoba.

Married for 57 years, George and Arlene had three grandchildren, Troy, 19, and Paige, 17 (Geordie and Jill) and Rocky, 12 (Tannis).

Geordie said the Wilson family members have jobs to pay the bills — George worked mostly in the plumbing industry — but football has always been "the family business."

"My dad, if I was to describe him, was the lovable curmudgeon. He had certainly a rough edge to him, but he had a big heart," said Geordie, the head coach of the Winnipeg Rifles of the Prairie Junior Football Conference since 2015 and a former coach in minor football and high school football.

"He would be fairly opinionated about things and it would be pretty common for someone (in football circles) to say to him, ‘Oh for gawd sake’s, peckerhead, shut the hell up!’ The name stuck. He was referred to as that with the St. Vital Bulldogs, the Mustangs, Football Manitoba. Everyone referred to him as Peckerhead. It just snowballed from there and the name just stuck. He was called that from in his 30s until he died, so for 50 years."

Geordie said only 30 members of the former St. Vital Bulldogs remain.

"They have monthly meetings; my dad died on the 10th and they met the following Monday and they had a toast to Peckerhead," said Geordie, who went on to teach and coach at Tec Voc High School, where George once played. In Geordie’s first year as Tec Voc head coach, George joined his son to serve as an assistant coach.

Tannis started the Manitoba Fearless women’s tackle football team, the first in Manitoba, in 2007. A former player and GM with the Fearless, Tannis helped start the Western Women’s Canadian Football League in 2011. In the same year, Tannis cofounded the Manitoba Girls Football Association, the first all-female tackle football league in Canada for girls aged 10-16.

Tannis also has a version of how her dad earned his unique nickname.

"My dad loved football, but he wasn’t very good at remembering names, like me. I’ll call people sweet pea, sugar twin and honey bun all the time because I’m so bad at remembering names. He called everybody peckerhead. ‘Hey peckerhead,’ no matter who he was talking to. People started calling him Peckerhead. It was never a bad thing. It was just his way of calling people and it was like that as far back as I can remember," Tannis said.

Craig Bachynski, the St. Vital Mustangs president and a longtime friend of the Wilson family, said George was "the driving force of St. Vital football in the ’80s and ’90s." He said George was in charge of most of the club’s fundraising initiatives, such as weekly bingo at Glenwood Community Centre, which paid for uniforms and equipment such as blocking sleds.

"People like George keep the doors open (in amateur sport)," said Bachynski, one of Geordie’s assistant coaches with the Rifles and the head coach of the Fearless women’s team.

George played a key role in getting the Mustangs clubhouse in Maple Grove Park in 1994. He worked with former city counsellor Al Golden to get the project approved, and George served as the liaison between the club and the builder.

"A lot of people call it ‘the club that George built’ because he was so instrumental in it," said Bachynski, noting he, George and a host of other volunteers did most of the painting so the club could save money.

George won senior men’s national championship titles with Bulldogs teams in 1960, 1962, 1968 and 1969 as a coach and then as a manager. With all four of those Bulldogs teams, he’s been inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and the Football Manitoba Hall of Fame. He was also inducted as a builder into the Football Manitoba Hall of Fame.

While he coached Geordie in minor football, George continued to coach and volunteer in other capacities in the St. Vital program long after Geordie had moved into the midget ranks and the University of Manitoba. He led the 1982 bantam Mustangs to the club’s first provincial title in 28 years.

As a young player, George played high school football at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate and moved to Tec Voc High School in 1951, where he was a captain with the school’s first football team.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca