He played more than 15 years with the Bucs and the Raiders. He was the first coach of Mardi Gras (then Century Plaza Good Time Gals), helped run the women’s development clinics, was a level 3 referee, served on the TFBC board for nearly 10 years as the Metro Men’s Rep and Vice President and served as president of the league in 1994/95.

For Colin, getting cut by the Dolphins turned out to be a good thing. It was the summer of 1983 and they had just lost in the Spring Finals and “Dale said ‘that can’t happen again,” so Colin and a couple of others were let go. “I’ve come to realize it was a good thing, I always would have been a back up,” says Colin. “It allowed me to join up with the Bucs, I moved over to defence, and never looked back.”

He remembers in touch football’s heydays the top teams being :
The Dolphins - always the Dolphins and everyone else played for second. Dale Baxter was the difference - could throw further on the run than most guys standing still

Hawks - emostly ex-tackle ball players from the Meralomas lead by Sheldon Paris, a pocket QB who played in the Pros -- continually losing to the Dolphins would finally get to them. They got tired of coming in 2nd and quit to play flag.

Chargers/Bears - lead by Craig Lindgaard and Duncan Kerr and they were always in the hunt.

Bucs - lead by Terry Burke at QB and Jim Lockey and Jim Devlin; both Jim’s were terrific athletes. The Bucs were the last team to beat the Dolphins (35 to 14) in May of 1986, before their 6-year-unbeaten streak.

Blues - lead by a number of x-UBC players like Dave Martin. Jay Prepchuk was their QB and Glenn Suitor played in his off seasons. During the Dolphin unbeaten streak they managed a 26-26 tie.

RazorBacks - lead by Corey at QB (who now plays for the Thunder)

Barons - led by Glen Faustman, James Dott and Tim Wheatley.

“At the height of Touch Football in BC we had 130 teams just in the lower mainland.”
A series of knee operations slowed Colin down and the Bucs were getting younger every year. Three of his buddies who were playing for the Dolphins were no longer starting and wanted to put the fun back in their game so in 1988 Henry Mielczarek and Colin started the Raiders, pulling some players from other Topflight teams who were feeling the same way. They were initially QB’d by Doug Hamon for a few years, then former pro, Mike Knott, before Duncan Kerr who played for the Bears came to QB around 1992-1993. He is still their quarterback today. Colin would play another 5 years (10 seasons) before injuries forced him to retire in 1998..

During his time he was more than a player in the league. He would mean so much more to TFBC. He was the first coach of [Mardi Gras ]
(then Century Plaza Good Time Gals) and coached them to their first 2 National Championships. He helped Hugh Benson run the women’s development clinics, was a level 3 referee, served on the TFBC board for many years and became president of the league in 1994/95. It was his dedication to the league that eventually forced him to quit the executive. “I had to step down, everyone was phoning me at work.....eventually my boss came to me and said ‘you can work for me or work for TFBC.’”.

Colin worked very hard on behalf of the league, with a careful guiding hand and always with doing what was best for our sport. He excelled in multi-faceted contributions of playing, serving many years on the executive and sensational coaching results. So very well deserved Colin.

-Paul Benwick