For over three-and-a-half decades he has been a constant fixture on the Dalhousie University sports scene. Whether it’s dispensing wisdom during a timeout in a basketball game, putting runners through their paces at Point Pleasant Park or just offering an encouraging word to any athlete wise enough to seek his counsel, Al Yarr has defined the word “coach”. Now one year into so-called retirement and 66 years young, Yarr seems more committed than ever to doing what he does best – teach. Newly-inducted in the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame as a builder, Yarr still rises early every morning and most days can be found at Dalplex by 7 a.m. working with young hoopsters.

“At heart I’m an educator,” said Yarr, who despite being retired as a professor is still the head cross country coach and assistant track coach at Dal. “To me, it’s really exciting every year to see people who weren’t very accomplished coming into their own. All of a sudden they’ve done the work and changed their level significantly. That never gets old. “Likewise, when you see young people coming in with potential who don’t recognize it. It’s great to see their development, knowing that if they’re guided properly they might end up being a good runner or athlete. It’s another aspect of their education. They learn how to work with other people, work under pressure and it’s very rewarding to watch their growth.”

A native of Victoria, B.C., Yarr started coaching at Dalhousie in 1963 and during his tenure has helped guide the Tigers to over 60 AUAA conference championships. Besides numerous AUAA Coach of the Year Awards for both track and field and cross country, he also won the Dalhousie Coach of the Year Award in 1987, was named the Nova Scotia Track and Field Association Coach of the Year in 1989 and 1991, and was twice runner-up for the Nova Scotia Amateur Coach of the Year Award (1990 and 1991).

 “You don’t become a great coach without having a lot of great athletes,” said Yarr, who is a very accomplished golfer. “There’s no magic to it. You have to have great athletes and we’ve had a lot of great athletes at Dal over the last 30 years. People like Richard Munro, John Cassidy, Larry Archibald, Jimmy Naugler and Bob Book set a standard and others followed. Once you get a little momentum going, people think that something good must be happening and good athletes just keep coming – Norm Tinkham, Dan Hennigar, Lucy Smith and Annick deGooyer – to name but a few.” While quick to deflect praise, Yarr’s proudest achievement is the number of athletes he coached who wound up on the international stage. “Two things stand out for me,” said Yarr. “One, is that 26 people I coached at Dal competed internationally, some of them many times. Secondly, is the number of people who stayed in the field and went on to become coaches themselves.”

A former assistant coach with Canada’s national men’s basketball squad, Yarr was also the head coach of the Canadian women’s cross country team at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium in 1991. “I’m thrilled (at being inducted) and its a great distinction,” said Yarr. “But basically you have to give credit to the kind of athletes that came to Dal from 1970 to 2000. And my pleasure is sometimes the person that wasn’t a great athlete and really came on.” While his coaching career has mostly been a series of positives, Yarr does have one minor regret. “On balance I can’t complain at all. But I would have loved to get to the CIAUs in basketball. Particularly the team we had in 1969-70. It was a team with great chemistry and we had good people coming off the bench. We lost in a playoff that year and its probably my single biggest disappointment because I think we had the character on that team to represent the conference very well.” Steve Bezanson is a sports reporter with the Chronicle-Herald, the Mail-Star and the Sunday Herald.

Bio Courtesy of  Steve Bezanson