Sam Jacks

Toronto, Canada, where Sam Jacks lived in 1920 after his parents immigrated from Glasgow, Scotland

Samuel Perry Jacks was born April 23, 1915 in Glasgow, Scotland less than a year after the outbreak of World War I in July of 1914. The war would end in November of 1918. Two years later in 1920 when Jacks was roughly five years old, he and his family moved from Scotland, immigrated to Canada, and settled in the city of Toronto.

Food line at the Yonge Street Mission in Toronto in the 1930s (during the Great Depression)

The early 1930s in Canada was marked by the Great Depression.

In 1935 at twenty years of age Jacks began his professional career in recreation becoming the Assistant Physical Director at the West End YMCA in Toronto.[3] Jacks would hold this position at the West End YMCA until 1940, a year after the outbreak of World War II.

In 1936, a year after beginning his professional career, he invented and codified the first set of rules for the first organized version of floor hockey, a variant which used a straight stick and a felt ring.[4] This achievement was later recognized by the Youth Branch of the United Nations.[5] The United Nations itself was established in 1945.

Brigadier S. James L. Hill (right), Commander of the 3rd Parachute Brigade, briefs officers of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion, Carter Barracks, Bulford, England, 6 December 1943.

After the outbreak of World War II Jacks enlisted and became a member of the Canadian Armed Forces serving from 1940-1945. During his time with the Canadian military he served with the #1 Motor Transport Volunteer Reserve Depot, 1st Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment,[6] Chemical Warfare School, and served with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion in charge of sports for South West England. On September 30th 1945, the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion was officially disbanded after it had returned to Canada and hostilities in Europe had ceased.

While stationed in England during the Second World War Jacks met Agnes MacKrell at a dance while he was a recreation director in the army. The two eventually married. Agnes Jacks CM[7][8] had been working at a munitions factory in England when she and Sam had met.[9]

After the war the couple arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, then moved to Toronto, Canada with their first son, Barry.[10] They later had two more sons in Canada, Bruce and Brian.

Agnes was a war bride.[11][12] "War brides" refers to women who married Canadian servicemen overseas then immigrated to Canada to join their husbands after the world wars. The term was popularized during the Second World War.

In 1946, Jacks returned to the West End YMCA in Toronto to continue his professional career. Among his numerous duties part of his time was spent working with post-war juvenile "gangs".

He also created the Toronto Boy's Club and became its first President.[13]

In 1947, Jacks became the head coach of the Canadian Floor Hockey Team which competed in the AAU Junior Olympic Games (Amateur Athletic Union) in the USA where the Canadian team finished in third place.[5] Jacks also coached a AAU Junior Olympic Games track and field team.[9]

A contemporary view of a street in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, where Sam Jacks moved in 1948

In 1948, Jacks was asked to become director of parks and recreation for the city of North Bay, Ontario in Northern Ontario. After moving to the city and accepting the position he then became a member of the Northern Ontario Recreation Directors Association (NORDA).

Soon after he became instrumental in developing the first Northern Ontario Playground Hockey Association (NOPHA) which encouraged youth to play ice hockey on outdoor rinks.

In 1961, the Fitness and Amateur Sport Act came into force in Canada whereby the Government of Canada made an official commitment to “encourage, promote and develop fitness and amateur sport in Canada.” A few years later, the Canadian government created two new directorates: Recreation Canada, which was tasked with improving the lifestyle of Canadians, and Sport Canada, which was responsible for developing competitive sport.[14]

In 1963 he created the Society of Directors of Municipal Recreation of Ontario (SDMRO) and served as its President for two consecutive terms.

When he was 48 years old, after having created the Society of Directors of Municipal Recreation of Ontario (SDMRO) in 1963[15] and now serving as its President, Jacks became responsible for his most well known achievement, his invention of the sport of ringette. Jacks had reportedly worked for two years to develop a presentation for the sport.

Among other events that year:

• Americans were still embroiled in the Vietnam War
• Beatlemania began
• the satirical Rhino Party was created in Canada and included promises such as turning Saskatchewan into the world's largest parking lot
• Civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and the "March on Washington," takes place on August 28, 1963, where King gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech
• President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin and delivered his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech
• push-button telephones were introduced
• the population of the world was still only 3.2 billion
• the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas took place in the final months of 1963

Jacks developed the first rough rules for ringette in the early part of the 1960s. While President of the Society of Directors of Municipal Recreation of Ontario in 1963 he asked for help from Mirl Arthur "Red" McCarthy to further develop them.

The sport of ringette was created to both address and remedy two ongoing problems. The first was the observation and criticism regarding the tendency by those organizing, developing and administering recreation programs to place most of their time, resources, and focus on running sports programs aimed at the male population to the exclusion of the female population. The second was to address additional criticism which almost immediately affected the newly created Society of Directors of Municipal Recreation of Ontario (SDMRO) of which Sam Jacks was President, pointing out the continual lack of success in Ontario in regards to gaining and maintaining participation in the only two winter-based team sports available to girls in North America at that time: girls broomball and girls ice hockey.[16] In addition, the sport could help attract girls who had little to do in winter months, especially those whose families couldn't afford figure skating or who weren't otherwise inclined.[17]While Jacks's sons were talented ice hockey players, with two of them eventually winning scholarships at renowned schools,[18] this didn't prevent him and Agnes Jacks from recognizing the needs and concerns of girls:

"Our sons were tremendous hockey players, but Sam could see a drastic need for a game for girls on ice on skates; a team sport. That was the basis for his whole vision. He visualized the whole thing for ringette right up to part of the Olympics some day."[19]

— "Ringette marks fruition of a dream", Winnipeg Free Press, Sunday, April 17, 1988

To date, ringette remains the only winter team sport to have been exclusively developed for and around the female physique rather than male as well as being driven by a female player demographic.

Samuel Perry Jacks passed away from cancer on May 14, 1975, roughly only twelve years after he created ringette.[20] He was 59.

His wife, Agnes (MacKrell) Jacks, passed away of heart failure on April 1, 2005, at the North Bay General Hospital. She was 81.[21]