Shane Fowler · CBC News · Posted: Aug 30, 2021 8:00 AM AT | Last Updated: August 30
In 70 years, George Gillett’s devotion to the game and to his hometown of Hoyt has never waned
George Gillett can’t remember the exact year he played his first game of softball.
He knows he was a teenager at the time, and that it was sometime between 1945 and 1947.
But whenever it was, that first game changed his life.
He’s since dedicated nearly 70 years to the game in his tiny southeastern New Brunswick hometown of Hoyt, about 50 kilometres south of Fredericton.
For that reason, Gillett has been selected to be inducted into Softball Canada’s hall of fame.
“It’s been my life,” Gillett said from the dugout on the field he built. “This is my home away from home.”
Gillett remembers clearing alders in the 1950s to make room for the ball field that is still used every week. It has since been renamed the George Gillett Field in his honour.
In the ’60s he coached his team to a Maritime Championship. He would go on to coach the Hoyt Schooners to that title more than a dozen times. He’d coach them to more than 40 provincial championships as well.
In 1981, Gillett worked to install the first set of lights in a New Brunswick ball field, allowing games to be played late into the night.
He’s kept scorebooks for nearly every game ever played on that field, dating back to 1959.
But ask him how many teams he’s coached and he’s at a loss.
“Oh my God, I couldn’t count them all, I don’t think,” Gillett said. “I’d take a team when they were five years old and coach them until they were at least 18 or 20.
“One time I coached [until they were] 45 or so. That’s how I won all the championships.”
Gillett has kept a jersey from every Hoyt team that’s ever played at the rec centre next to his field, along with dozens of trophies and photos from every team he’s coached or played on.
To read the complete story and view photos at CBC.ca, click here.
Gillett will be inducted, along with John MacEwen of Nova Scotia, at the Softball Canada annual general meeting, set for Nov. 11-13 in Fredericton.