The Harold Mann Award goes to Bayne.
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Bayne, who spent more than four decades with the Spruce Capital Boxing Club — 20 years as head coach — was announced as the winner of the Mann award at Boxing B.C.’s annual general meeting Saturday in Burnaby. The award was named for Mann shortly after the legendary Prince George boxer won a gold medal for Canada at the 1962 British Empire Games in Australia.
“It’s the Stanley Cup of boxing in B.C.,” Bayne said of the award, meant to recognize lasting and significant contributions to the sport. “It’s really something to win it.”
Bayne, 65, is the second Prince George person to win the Mann award. The other, fittingly, was Mann’s own father and coach, Irving, who passed away in 1978.
Bayne and Mann are close friends, so Mann was thrilled to find out Bayne was this year’s winner.
“They say it’s one of the most sought-after awards in B.C. for (people who) donate their time to boxing, and I feel so good about Boyd getting it,” said the 69-year-old Mann.
Bayne’s involvement in local boxing began shortly after the Lions Athletic Club closed its doors in 1958. With Lions Club dollars, a new gym was built in the basement of Prince George’s original Civic Centre. Bayne’s father, Reg, was a key figure in the construction of the new facility, and Bayne himself was also on hand to help with the project.
“I was just a youngster at that time, and I don’t know how much help I was,” Bayne said with a laugh. “But I did participate and help build it, along with the other Lions members.”
The gym became the home of the Spruce Capital Boxing Club.
Bayne’s father had a love for boxing, so Bayne was a regular around the gym. In 1967, Mann brought a Canadian championship tournament to Prince George and asked Bayne to help out as a timekeeper. Bayne willingly stepped forward to volunteer.
By the late 1970s, Mann told Bayne he needed some help running the Spruce Capital club. Bayne again filled Mann’s request for assistance. Bayne brought along his eight-year-old son, Allan, who began his own boxing career at that time and went on to become a nine-time B.C. champion.
Bayne — even though he never had a single amateur fight himself — became head coach at Spruce Capital and held the job for two decades. With Spruce Capital teams, he traveled from one end of Canada to the other, and even into the United States.
“In all, I produced a lot of good fighters in Prince George,” Bayne said. “When the Spruce Capital Boxing Club went to fight, they knew we were there. They always asked, ‘How do you produce such good athletes?’”
Finally tiring out, Bayne stepped away from the club about seven years ago but has stayed close to the sport as a ringside official.
“I’m very, very happy where I am right now,” he said. “I still see all the athletes and I’m meeting the coaches all of the time. We just came back from (a fight card) in Revelstoke a couple weekends ago. So we still get to go around quite a bit.”
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