Vernon Drew Eville
Eville Shows Speed and Courage
“He has become the most familiar and admired student on the campus. With his graduation Acadia loses one of her finest athletes and noblest characters.” An outstanding athlete, Vern Eville first made his mark as a member of the Wolfville High School track team. In the 1928 interscholastic meet, Eville won three events– the 220, 440 and the broad jump; in each, he established a new record, bettering the former broad jump record by over 2 inches. Eville entered Acadia University in the fall of 1928, where he became an important member of the football, basketball and track teams. Contemporary reports of rugby matches called him Acadia’s “speedy half...He is a dangerous man when the ball is handed to him.” He was also a member of the 1930 basketball team that represented eastern Canada in the national finals.
Track and field is where Eville truly made his mark, winning or placing in most of the competitions he entered. In Acadia’s May 1929 interclass meet, he and Sophomore Howie Ryan competed head to head. “In the 220 yard dash little Howie Ryan and lanky Vern Eville flew around the turn and down the straightaway neck and neck, Ryan barely holding the lead he gained at the start.” In that competition, Eville won the high jump, 120 yard hurdles and the 440 yard run, placed second in the 220 and the broad jump, and third in the 100 yards, shot and discus. The end result was that “Ryan last year the high scorer in the interclass meet, bowed to Eville for individual honors. The high school track king of last year is coming up to his early promise and made a consistently good showing to score 25 ½ point to Ryan’s 24 ½, Eville is thus the first holder of the cup donated by Fred Kelly, Acadia’s popular coach, to the high scorer in the annual track and field events.” During the 1930 interclass meet, “Thrilling a large gathering by the wonderful speed and form he displayed in stepping flawlessly over the timbers, Vernon Eville, 19 year old sophomore, provided the stellar performance of the annual interclass track and field meet ...by shattering the 26 year old Acadia record in the 120 yard hurdles. Eville, who did not knock a hurdle down, was clocked in sixteen and one-fifth seconds. The old mark...was established in 1904 by Joe Howe, greatest of all Acadia track and field stars. Eville’s time also beats...Howe’s Maritime intercollegiate record made in 1906. When it is considered that previous to his record-breaking performance, Eville had taken part in four other events, and that he never ran the hurdles until last summer, his feat in lowering a record that has been on the Acadia books for over a quarter of a century, is indeed remarkable.”
Selected to Canada’s 1930 British Empire Games team, Eville contracted polio only a few days before the competition began. While this ended his competitive athletic career, he continued to participate in sport after he left hospital. He was honorary captain of several Acadia teams, was president of the Acadia Amateur Athletic Association in 1932 and graduated with a BA in that same year, “amidst one of the greatest ovations ever given an Acadia grad.”
During the 1930s, Eville frequently served as an official for sports events; he umpired softball for the town league, acted as a finish line judge at track meets and was active in the Wolfville Badminton Club.
(Acadia Yearbook 1932; Acadian Recorder May 1929, 29 October 1929, [11] May 1930; Acadia Sports Hall of Fame citation)
