Tom Hawkins career as a sports builder began with the diamond sport. He coached five seasons in the National Little League, helped form the Gordon Head Little League and the Cosmopolitan Babe Ruth League and assisted in forming the Victoria & District Baseball Association, serving as its treasurer for 15 years. In 1974 Tom started what would become 12 consecutive years as an executive member of the Victoria Horseshoe Club, serving as president from 1978 to 1984. He also served 10 years as a B.C. Horseshoe Association director and was instrumental in creating their provincial Hall of Fame. Locally, he was involved in expanding the Victoria club to 28 covered and floodlit pits. Tom assumed a leadership role in the organizing and hosting of major national events at the club and was invaluable in establishing the sport of horseshoe pitching in Victoria. The Victoria Horseshoe Club honoured Tom with a Life Membership in 1993 and he is a member of both the Canadian and B.C. Horseshoe Halls of Fame.

The Victoria Flying "Y" was one of the greatest athletic juggernauts Canadian sports have ever seen. Between 1930 and 1962, Archie McKinnon's Victoria YMCA track and field and swim teams placed at least one, and usually more, athletes on every Canadian team to the Summer Olympics and Commonwealth Games. Over that period, Flying "Y" athletes, a virtual Who's Who of Canadian track and field and swimming, set more than 50 Canadian records and won numerous international medals. "Cherish the medals," coach and mentor Archie McKinnon used to tell his Flying "Y" athletes. "But always keep in mind that they don't represent the be-all and end-all of sport, the real thing of value is the sweat and work that went into it. " Some of the credit goes to the Victoria Flying "Y" volunteer coaches who helped Archie and his athletes build this record and includes the likes of Bruce Humber, Bob Johnstone, Bob Dorhety, Joan Langdon, Al Aylward, Bob Hutchison, Harry Mitchell, Jack Todd and Rafael Melendez-Duke among many others.