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Football hero mourned
Barry K. Levitt, BEng'65
I was just looking through the Summer 1999 McGill News magazine and noted the passing of Tom Skypeck. The year before I enrolled at McGill I attended some of the thrilling football games in which he was the quarterback. I have confirmed from the web that indeed the Skypeck from then is the same one whose death in January is reported. And a further connection, as revealed on the web, is to John Cleghorn, who chaired your most recent fundraising campaign (featured in the Summer 1997 issue) and who was the centre for Skypeck. I hope there will be (slightly) more on Skypeck in a future McGill News. Peter Sutherland, BSc'67
I was saddened to read in the last issue of the passing of Tom Skypeck, DDS'63, who quarterbacked our football team to a wild, frenzied, absolutely crazy-with-excitement championship in 1962. I think your readers would enjoy a little retrospective about the man, the team and the fans of that era. I saw Dr. Skypeck at my 25th reunion in 1987. I wish I had told him how much pleasure he gave us then and how fond my memories of those games had been over the years. I don't know if anyone will recall, but I was the fellow who showed up at the games in a grease monkey's suit dyed bright red with a big white "M" sewed on the back. I usually ended up after each game scaling the outside walls of what I think was the Student Union, and crawling in an upstairs window to join an after-game party in progress. Those were the days, and Skypeck was an integral part of it all. Ralph Gallay, BEng'62
Ed. note: A look through our archives gives a sense of the excitement generated by the strong Redmen teams led by Tom Skypeck. Dink Carroll, a McGill grad who wrote about sports for years in the Montreal Gazette, summed up the heady 1960 national championship season in a McGill News article titled "A Year to Remember." In his story, Carroll calls Skypeck "the best passer ever to appear in Canadian college ranks." Having taken the league title in the East, the Redmen went on to crush the University of Alberta Golden Bears 46-7 before 9,200 fans at Molson Stadium to take the Churchill Trophy. Carroll quotes the U of A coach, who conceded that his young team had been outclassed and intimidated by the powerful Redmen. "But we have never encountered a passer like Skypeck. We couldn't 'defense' him." Peter Sutherland is quite right that John Cleghorn, BCom'62, was a Redman (1959-61). We asked Cleghorn for his recollections, and in a note he described the effect of Skypeck's confident leadership. "As a former All-Ivy quarterback from Cornell University, he took the nucleus of a good team that had scored only 25 points in 1959 and with some experienced new talent, led the Redmen to the finals in 1960, '61 and '62. Those three great years have become known as the 'Skypeck era.'" McGill lost the league championship to Queen's in 1961. The league final in 1962 was another McGill-Queen's match-up, with Queen's leading until the last two minutes of the game. Then, says Cleghorn, "Skypeck marched the Redmen all the way from his own goal line area and passed to fellow dental student Wally Lambert for the winning touchdown with only seconds remaining." Cleghorn, who played as defensive middle guard and offensive centre, says Skypeck wasn't a quarterback who needed a lot of protection. "He was a big, imposing force, weighing in around 220 pounds, the average weight of a lineman in those days. As the team's punter, his booming kicks gave McGill good field position." The game wasn't something he gave up after graduation, according to his former teammate. "Tom lived and breathed football - his knowledge of the game was legendary. After his playing days, he coached high school teams in his native Massachusetts." Nor, says Cleghorn, will his contributions to Redmen history be forgotten. "Whenever autumn comes to Molson Stadium, Tom Skypeck's presence will be felt as his McGill teammates and friends come together and remember." Dr. Skypeck died of a heart attack while walking near his home in Chicopee, Mass. He was 61. He is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. Many are called Thank you for the article, "Divinely Driven," in the Spring 1999 issue. I believe that it is a tribute in part to the Faculty of Religious Studies that these students have found their way to McGill. I believe, however, that the ordinands featured in the article are only some of the divinely driven students at McGill. As an ordinand, graduate student, and teaching assistant in Religious Studies at McGill, I had the opportunity to know undergraduate students, students preparing for ordained ministries, and graduate students preparing for a variety of careers. What I saw among all these students was an awakening of vocation (of calling) which launched us on diverse paths, but which had no uniform relevance to a career. For the ordinands, the calling was to "ordained," typically church, work. For many other students I knew, the calling was equally real, even if the careers were not equally clear. I commend the Faculty of Religious Studies and the University for continuing to provide an environment for finding and following a vocation which has a basis in religious reflection, and whose career implications are unlimited. Rob McIntyre, STM'97 Hotel, schmotel I would like to offer my compliments and thanks to Margarita Ortega, Summer Business Coordinator of the McGill Residences, and her staff for the hospitality and the assistance they offered my staff and athletes during our stay at Molson Hall at the end of May. We chose to use the McGill facilities as the headquarters for our Women's World Cup Cycling Road Race. We lodged over 40 people there for the weekend. The location was just down the road from the Mount Royal circuit and close to our vehicle supplier, Centreville Volkswagen, where we had to shuttle vehicles back and forth. The residence offered a quiet and safe refuge from the downtown core where the riders could relax before the event, yet find all the service they required within easy reach. We had none of the difficulties in parking our numerous vehicles that we would have had at a downtown hotel. The very pleasant and helpful staff at the Bishop Mountain Hall offices took care of all our copying and faxing needs. They even had a hose for mechanics to wash bikes. The computers in the halls provided easy Internet access for riders and organizers. Ms. Ortega and her staff were very patient with the numerous problems and changes an event such as ours entails. The residences proved much more comfortable than I would have imagined, so much so that Acca Due O/Dream Team of Italy decided to stay there for an extra four days before travelling to the World Cup race in Philadelphia. The German Nürnberger Team preferred their stay there more than in a hotel and much more than their stay last year at the Université de Montréal (their words, not mine)! I would recommend the summer residences to anyone travelling to Montreal looking for a convenient and inexpensive place to stay, and if all goes well, we will be back next year. Ed Arzouian, BA'87 Right Stuff is wrong I recently received the Summer 1999 edition of the McGill News Alumni Quarterly and was very disappointed when I saw the "Right Stuff" dating service advertisement on page 42. This ad implies that anyone who has not had the privilege of attending McGill or the other schools listed is inferior to those who have. I hope that McGill alumni look at the letters beside their names not as keys to an exclusive social club but rather as tools that will help them to make positive contributions to the world around them. Education implies enlightenment, not elitism. Claire Sharpe, BA'98 You can e-mail: dianaga@martlet1.lan.mcgill.ca | |||