John Albert (Jack) Buckham passed away on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 2, 2021, while working on his beloved farm, 30 km East of Kamloops on the South Thompson River.
Jack's passing was sudden and unexpected. Jack is predeceased by our wonderful mother Dianne Buckham (nee Bond) and will be forever remembered by his loving friend and companion Maureen Nucklaus. He is survived by his sister Sue (Norm) McGowan, brothers Bruce (Patricia), Bob Buckham and Dianne's siblings Jim Bond, Karen Chayeski, Gerry Bond, Vicki Hay and Kenda Pauwels and numerous nieces and nephews and their children who have lost the attentive ear, encouragement and unconditional support that characterized 'Uncle Jack'.
Jack was committed to building opportunities through sport for the youth of this City. Jack's identity was interwoven with the accomplishments of the school sports programs he built, teams he coached, individual players he invested himself in, and committees that he led or worked within to host provincial and national championships in this city.
Jack valued 'struggle' - he was attracted to those who showed a will to better themselves, to chase a goal even in the face of uncertainty or even worse the threat of failure. Jack believed in struggle as a means of empowerment and recognized the empowerment of young people as being a pillar our society leans on. Jack saw athletics as a mechanism - a means to an end. Sport facilitates, even encourages, struggle. It draws people together to witness and celebrate struggle, and through the display of perseverance, sport can motivate those who are holding back, or who are being held out, to engage in what is important to them. Whether it was a teenager trying to become a better player, a team trying to overcome long odds or a city trying to raise itself to increasingly higher standards, Jack was drawn, like a moth to a flame, towards participating in those situations.
Out of these struggles, he believed, to his core, that new leaders would emerge. It may not manifest for decades, but from the scores of kids that he helped learn to compete, from the adults he encouraged to build ever bigger and better venues for competition, from the crowds that attended those events - leaders would emerge. These leaders might excel in any life endeavour. They could develop scientific knowledge that keeps us healthy, develop technology that cleans our water and air, or develop the mutual respect and compassion that bridges division in our communities. He understood that we could never predict who these individuals would be in advance, and so the best way to see them emerge was to include everyone. The pursuit of that impossible goal became Jack's defining characteristic.
How did this pursuit come to be? In the mid-1960s Jack stood at a crossroads - faced with a decision to return to Kamloops to accept a teaching, coaching and athletic director role at Valleyview Junior Secondary, or to become an athletic trainer with a professional basketball team. He had just finished his studies at Seattle Pacific University, his own personal athletic path having led there from Kam High in his attempt to play basketball at increasingly higher levels of competition.
Those of you familiar with the stories Jack kept on 'high rotation', know that his basketball dream never materialized. But he did endear himself to his coaches and he had become a member of the athletic therapy staff at the university and this had opened a door to an intriguing opportunity to join the staff of an expansion NBA (or ABA?) team. The decision: follow that intrigue, or return home to a 'small dusty town' (his words specific to that time) absent the lights, excitement and allure of professional sports to teach and coach teenagers.
Jack came back to Kamloops and started building opportunities for young athletes to struggle. He was part of the team of educators in this city that established junior high football for the region. Not one team, but a pool of school teams that competed passionately against one another under 'Friday night lights' in what is now (we believe) the field in front of the bandshell in Riverside Park.
From that beginning was built a community of people who evolved the meaning of football to this region. Through their efforts, Kamloops witnessed this sport at higher and higher levels of competition, and now it is played under bigger lights at an even better venue at the TCC under the direction of accomplished people raised in Kamloops' sporting culture.
Jack loved basketball and immersed himself in coaching. Jack's Kam High teams competed in Kamloops, throughout the Okanagan and then increasingly in the lower mainland. Jack was 'hell-bent on forcing his 'Red Devils' to understand what it means to step onto a court under the eyes of hundreds or thousands of people and battle against an opponent supported by a larger population with greater resources and more fanfare. To facilitate this, he went to ever-increasing lengths, acquiring his Class 2 driver's license so that he could transport his players by highway coach to venues all over the province.
But the days of basketball caravans originating in the interior (what he lovingly referred to as "beyond Hope") travelling through the Fraser Canyon to compete at the lower mainland venues are now indeed in the rear-view mirror. Kamloops' basketball players have repeatedly prevailed on the provincial stage and some have moved on to compete at the highest possible levels. The caravans changed direction; they came to Kamloops and this community showed visiting competitors how sincere it was about honouring excellence in this sport - setting a higher standard that those visitors took back to their own homes.
Jack was legendary in the 80s for his intensity as a basketball coach. This is likely due to his wife having retired from coaching with him to raise their children and thus she was not present on the bench to balance his emotional responses. But that same intensity was also present in his role as an athletic director.
To define his commitment to the sporting youth of this community, in 1991 Jack went against the wishes of the BC Teacher's Federation and refused to shut down school sports at Kam High in support of a labour dispute at that time. To appreciate the magnitude and toll of that decision, one must understand how passionate Jack was about the teaching profession. He had been a member of the Kamloops District Teaching Association's bargaining team years prior and had fought fiercely for improved learning conditions and supports for teachers, coaches and kids. Going against the governing body he was devoted to was a bitter pill, but one that had to be swallowed to uphold what he believed most important.
Generations of people who benefited from Jack's mentorship, support, encouragement and demands helped create a culture of "we can do this" inside the city of Kamloops. The 'small dusty town', hosted provincial, national and world championships. Children attending these events were inspired to participate in future offerings, and they translated that motivation into action through school and community sports programs that gave them a venue to do so. This sporting ecosystem is currently maintained by networks of people that include Jack's former students.
