Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Lloyd Percival

2001:569:74D2:A800:C1F7:73B6:B5B7:171A: /* References */


'''Lloyd Percival''' (June 3, 1913 – July 23, 1974) was a Canadian sports coach, author, and fitness guru. Percival wrote ''The Hockey Handbook'', a work which was said to have inspired the develop of hockey in the Soviet Union and other nations.<ref name="book"></ref> He is a member of [[Canada's Sports Hall of Fame]].

==Biography==
Percival was born in Toronto. In his youth, he participated in multiple sports, including boxing, cricket, and tennis.<ref name="CE"/> As a tennis player, he reached the final of the 1929 Canadian junior championship. After losing in the championship match, he sought advice from his opponent's coach, who told him that he was using poor technique. This provided inspiration for Percival in his future coaching career.<ref name="CSHOF"></ref> In 1936, he participated in a [[Canadian cricket tours of England|Canadian cricket tour of England]].<ref name="CE"></ref>

Percival then became a coach for the [[Toronto Native Sons]], a junior ice hockey team, during the 1939–40 season.<ref name="paradox"/> He worked with hockey players as their fitness coach, including [[Gordie Howe]] and [[Terry Sawchuk]],<ref name="book"/> and also worked with professional golfer [[George Knudson]], for whom he devised extensive workout programs.<ref name="time"></ref> [[Sandra Bezic]], [[George Chuvalo]] and [[Kathy Kreiner]] are among the other athletes trained by Percival.<ref name="book"/> In addition, he became a leading track and field coach in Canada, a position he maintained into the 1960s,<ref name="paradox"></ref> having founded the North Toronto Red Devils club in 1946.<ref name="CSHOF"/> With athletes on the Red Devils, Percival introduced [[interval training]] and worked with them on strength development. At the time, these were new approaches for Canada, despite having been used in European nations.<ref name="CSHOF"/> In addition, he advocated for training measures that did not involve running, such as diet improvements and the use of massages.<ref name="AOHOF"/> [[Isometric exercise]] was a form of workout favored by Percival, along with mental training; ''[[The Globe and Mail]]'''s [[Lorne Rubenstein]] wrote that "he wanted the mind and body allied as one under the objective of getting the most out of oneself."<ref name="time"/>

Along with his coaching, Percival branched out into other pursuits related to sport. On the [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] (CBC) radio network, he hosted a program called ''The Sports College on the Air'', which at one point attracted listening audiences of 800,000 people.<ref name="paradox"/> The program first aired in the early 1940s on the [[CKOC]] radio station in Hamilton, before the CBC began running it in 1944.<ref name="AOHOF"/> Percival authored various works that gave advice on proper sporting technique, in sports including basketball, ice hockey, and volleyball, along with more general fitness guides.<ref name="CSHOF"/>

In 1951, Percival wrote the book ''The Hockey Handbook''. According to sportswriter Tim Wharnsby, this work became influential in the world of ice hockey. [[Anatoly Tarasov]], an early coach of the [[Soviet Union national ice hockey team]], used ''The Hockey Handbook'' as a training tool in developing the country's hockey program, according to Wharnsby.<ref name="book"/> In addition, the national teams of Czechoslovakia, Finland, and Sweden were said to have used Percival's book to aid in player development.<ref name="book"/> Writers Tobias Stark and Hart Cantelon credit the book as having a more modest impact on Soviet hockey development, saying that the noticed version was a 1957 edition that came from Czechoslovakia; according to them, the book was noted in Sweden at the time of its first release.<ref name="paradox"/> Regardless, [[National Hockey League]] (NHL) teams largely ignored Percival's work for most of his career. His only involvement with an NHL club was with the [[Detroit Red Wings]], for whom he ran players through workouts and interviewed them in 1950. Author Gary Mossman wrote that "Percival was never released from the purgatory to which NHL coaches and officials relegated him for daring to challenge their knowledge of the game."<ref name="paradox"/> [[Toronto Maple Leafs]] head coach [[Hap Day]] was among those sharply critical of Percival. The sports media also criticized Percival; one sportswriter later reported that "his ideas were too radical and comprehensive, not just for those they were designed for but also for those who report."<ref></ref>

An athletic complex designed by Percival called the Fitness Institute opened in 1963. It featured facilities to train athletes in several sports as well as computerized equipment. Members of the complex were each given individualized programs to aid their progress. By the early 1970s, Percival began to receive greater recognition; the [[Canadian Olympic Association]] hired him as a consultant.<ref name="CSHOF"/> Percival died in 1974 in Toronto.<ref name="CE"/> Two years later, he became a member of [[Canada's Sports Hall of Fame]] in the builder category.<ref name="CSHOF"/> The [[Athletics Ontario]] Hall of Fame inducted Percival in 2016.<ref name="AOHOF"></ref>

==References==



[[Category:1913 births]]
[[Category:1974 deaths]]
[[Category:Canadian exercise and fitness writers]]
[[Category:Canadian exercise instructors]]
[[Category:Sportspeople from Toronto]]
[[Category:Writers from Toronto]]


from Wikipedia - New pages [en] https://ift.tt/3oJjSqC
via IFTTT

No comments:

Post a Comment