UBC's longest serving coach, for 37 years, between 1946 until 1987, coached UBC football, men's and women's swimming and men's and women's basketball. Won five Western Canadian championships with men's basketball, CIAU Coach of the Year in swimming and '56 Olympic basketball assistant coach. This former star athlete was the initiative behind UBC's Aquatic Centre.
Jack Pomfret, who was appointed instructor in the Department of Physical Education at UBC in 1946, was set to embark upon a 41 year career as a dedicated teacher, coach and "a special piece of history."
After an outstanding athletic career at Vancouver's Lord Byng High School, Pomfret received an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Washington. He was a member of the Huskies baseball, basketball and swimming teams, earning Pacific Coast All-Star recognition in basketball and setting Conference and native Canadian records in swimming. He interrupted his university education at Washington to do three years in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He then returned to Washington and received in 1946 his physical education degree from the university where he had achieved the reputation as an extraordinary athlete. Pomfret, at this time, came back to Vancouver to assume teaching and coaching duties at UBC.
From 1946 to 1951 Pomfret was an assistant coach with the UBC football team, showing signs of becoming a coaching leader and innovator. From 1948 through to 1961/62, 14 seasons, Pomfret was head coach of the Thunderbird basketball team, winning five Western Canadian University championships. There probably would have been a few Canadian University titles won during this time had there been such a contest, the concept not existing during Pomfret's years. In 1956 Pomfret was selected to be an assistant coach on the basketball team representing Canada at the Olympics at Melbourne. He joined three of his UBC players on the team - John McLeod, Ed Wild and Ron Bisset, verifying the fact UBC was one of the best teams in the country at this time.
While coaching football and basketball at UBC, Pomfret continued to play basketball locally, playing on four Canadian Senior 'A' championship teams, three with the Cloverleafs and one with the Meralomas.
After stepping down as men's basketball coach in 1962, Pomfret took over as UBC's men's and women's swimming coach, a position he held for 12 years, coaching six Western Canadian champion teams. In 1971 he was named the CIAU Swim Coach of the Year and during the late 1960s and early 1970s, coached many of his swimmers to Commonwealth, Pan-American and Olympic levels, including UBC Olympians Ken Campbell, Karen James, George Smith and Bill Mahony. According to UBC's Buzz Moore, "Pomfret won the respect of all athletes. He instilled within them the desire to represent the university to the best of their ability."
Associate Professor Pomfret, who put special emphasis on teaching, stepped down from his swim coaching duties in 1975 to pursue his dream of a campus Aquatic Centre. Four years later however, he was asked to take over as head coach of the women's basketball team in an attempt to pull them out of the doldrums. For the next eight years, until 1987, Pomfret did everything possible to create a winning team. Although there was marked improvement, the winning season remained elusive.
Although Pomfret's 35 years as a UBC head coach and two as an assistant is a UBC school record and his teams have won several Canada West championships, he is most proud of his contribution toward the realization of UBC's Aquatic Centre. It was due largely to Pomfret, his associates and the support from students, that this much needed indoor facility on campus became a reality. The Aquatic Centre was Pomfret's dream as he assumed in 1975 the chairmanship of the Centre and its full-time fund raising duties. The award winning facility, which also housed the Buchanan Research Centre, was completed in 1978.
At the time of Pomfret's retirement on December 31, 1987, after 41 years on campus, he was still actively involved, establishing a scholarship fund in Kinesiology.
Throughout Pomfret's career as an athlete, coach and one who sought to change and improve athletics at UBC, he felt that teaching kids was his most important responsibility, in fact the university's most important responsibility. According to former UBC Director of Athletics, Bus Phillips, "Pomfret is one of a kind".
This Inductee is also in the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
Researched and written by Fred Hume, UBC Athletics Historian
