From his first step onto the pitch at the Gorge Soccer Club at four years old in 1971, a field later endowed with his family name, Jamie has exemplified the physical versatility of the consummate soccer player. He honed his craftsmanship on the soccer pitch by blending the skills of lacrosse, baseball, field hockey and ice hockey from his childhood and early teen years. As a youth at Gorge FC Soccer Club, Jamie was awarded the Gorge Kulia (MVP) Award six times.

As a member of the Spectrum High School team in 1985, he helped the team claim the Colonist Cup and was named to the Tournament All-Star team for the BC High School Provincials. In his first year playing top flight adult soccer in the Vancouver Island Soccer League (VISL), Jamie was recognized with the Ivy Lucas Lands End Award as Rookie of the Year along with the Mogens Brodsgaard (McGavin Cup) MVP Award. A stalwart fixture of the Gorge Division One Men’s Soccer team, he helped lead the team to two Provincial Senior Men’s Soccer Championships in 2001 and 2002.

At 16 years old, Jamie also gravitated to coaching and immediately made a contribution to the development and excellence of club players. In 2005, he began his long tenure as the Gorge FC Soccer Club Technical Director, overseeing the community soccer program for players 3 - 18 years old. In 2014 and 2022, he was awarded the Lower Island Soccer Association Coach of the Year Award; coaching a Victoria United Girls U14 Metro team to a Provincial title - a first for a lower island girl’s Tier One team.

Over the years, Jamie suffered multiple concussions resulting in brain damage, which led to his career as a para soccer player. While still an active member of the Gorge Over 35s team, Jamie made his debut with Canada Soccer’s Para Soccer National Team Program under coach Drew Ferguson. In Jamie’s first competition in 2010 at Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was Canada’s top goal scorer with four goals. He scored two goals versus Venezuela in a 6-0 win and later versus Mexico, he scored another two goals in a 5-4 win helping the team qualify for the 2011 World Championships in Drenthe, Netherlands. Playing as a central midfielder, Jamie continued his scoring streak with a hat-trick in a 6-0 win versus Finland. Canada went on to finish the tournament with a memorable 3-2 comeback win against Spain with Jamie scoring the equalizer and eventual winner.

For his play and invaluable mentorship on and off the soccer pitch, Jamie was named Canadian Soccer Association Para Player of the Year in 2017

In 2019, Jamie retired as one of the all-time greatest Canadian para players, having represented Canada in tournaments worldwide and won the respect of all against whom he played. Over his nine years with the Para Soccer National Team, he scored 25 goals and accumulated 35 caps for Canada at three World Championships, two America’s Championships, two World Cup Qualifiers, the Para Pan Am Games and the International Cup.

Victoria O'Keefe Soccer Club

Victoria O'Keefe Soccer Club

Victoria O'Keefe Soccer Club

Victoria O'Keefe Soccer Club

Victoria O'Keefe Soccer Club

Victoria O'Keefe Soccer Club

O_Keefes_2-1747.jpg O_Keefes_h_s-1748.jpg O_Keefes_1a-1756.jpg

The 1967 John F. Kennedy Cup soccer champion Victoria O'Keefes celebrated the 50th anniversary of their title in 2017.

The old Pacific Coast Soccer League (PCSL) was the top level of the sport in the province and the local team was known as Victoria United before the O'Keefes beer sponsorship. The Kennedy Cup, inaugurated by the late U.S. president in 1961 as part of his physical fitness initiative, was contested between the champions of the PCSL and the amateur champions of Washington, Oregon, California and Mexico. It was the only sports Cup named after JFK.

To make it to the tournament was no easy path, yet the O'Keefes won it with aplomb in 1967.
“With the likes of Vancouver Columbus and Firefighters, every week in the Pacific Coast League was tough competition,” recalled Coach Frank Grealy of the process just to get to the Kennedy Cup tournament. The O'Keefes proved to be the pick of the bunch in Canada's Centennnial year as they won 19 of 21 games in the 1966-67 PCSL season. “These were intelligent, smart players. I always believed in attacking soccer, and sometimes I enjoyed so much what I was watching with this group that I forgot I was coaching,” said Grealy.

The PCSL hosted the Kennedy Cup tournament that year at Empire Stadium in Vancouver, so needless to say, Lower Mainland soccer officials were dismayed by the lost marketing opportunities due to having an Island team as the host PCSL-Champion club.
“Oh, Oh, Wrong Team,” read a headline in a Vancouver Sun story on May, 8, 1967, by legendary sports columnist Jim Kearney. He was from Victoria, and no doubt reveled in the Lower Mainland organizers’ discomfort about who the host club turned out to be.

“It just clicked for us that year... it was a true team effort,” said O'Keefes goalkeeper Barry Sadler, who recorded 10 shutouts that season. Victoria beat Los Angeles FC 3-1 in the Kennedy Cup semifinals and then shocked the Mexico representative, which was a national select side, 2-1 in the Cup final before more than 6,000 fans.

B.C. soccer legend Dave Stothard, a member of the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame, credits Grealy’s punishing training schedule and notes that’s why the O'Keefes didn’t fade late in games. “We went at it hard, even in the last 20 minutes,” said Grealy.

The veteran captain, Stothard, had played in Canada’s first-ever World Cup qualifying campaign for Sweden 1958. The 18-year-old rookie, Ike MacKay, would go on to play pro in the NASL and for Canada in World Cup qualifying for Germany 1974 and Argentina 1978. The goalkeeper, Sadler, commanded the crease for a generation of Island soccer teams. Peter Brett was from England and Jim Menzies, Tom Westwater and Ed Carson had come out from Scotland and commuted from jobs in Port Alberni to play.

All in all, this was a true team effort.

SPONSORED BY VANCOUVER ISLAND SOCCER LEAGUE