Every Monday, Dr. Darwin Semotiuk would stop by the office of Greg Marshall and bring the head coach of the Western Mostangs football team an apple.
“It was always a honeycrisp,” says Marshall. “The best kind.”
Week after week, season after season, win or lose, Monday would come and so would the apple.
“I would be in the middle of breaking film down for the next week and he would calm me down… it was special to have him in my life,” Marshall says.
Semotiuk passed away on Jan. 4 at the age of 76.
As a coach, he led the Mustangs to two Vanier Cup titles. Semotiuk won University coach of the year honours in 1976.
Semotiuk stepped away from coaching in 1984 to become athletics director at Western and held the position for 20 years.
“He taught us football but he taught us way more than blocking and tackling,” describes Marshall. “He taught us how to be respectful and kind and how to treat people, how to be inclusive. He was incrdible in that way.”
Dr. Semotiuk worked very hard to make lives for others better. He was very involved with Special Olympics and Ronald McDonald House along with countless other groups and events.
Semotiuk starred as an athlete in both basketball and football. He played for the Canada’s national men’s basketball team and was drafted by the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL.
He was an International Fellow for the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education. Semotiuk’s research was wide ranging in areas like sport and politics, Canadian public sport policy and coaching.
He was named London’s Sportsperson of the Year in 2014.
Meeting him would never tell you any of that. His attention was always focussed on others.
“It’s how he acted,” admits Marshall when looking at the impact Semotiuk had on so many people, both athletes and colleagues. “It was the type of husband that he was and the type of father. He was an incredible role model for all of us.”
Marshall credits Semotiuk’s ability to calm people and situations as being instrumental.
“When Darwin got angry with you he got really quiet. He almost whispered,” says Marshall. “He had this calming presence on our team. But for someone who rarely raised his voice, he commanded the locker room.”
Marshall tells the story of being recruited by Semotiuk to go to Western and play for the Mustangs.
“On the ride home my mom said, ‘I don’t know a lot about football but I think you should go to Western. I’m a pretty good judge of character and that is a special man and I know he is going to look after you.'”
From the way he contributed to his community to the work he did to better sport and athletes and those around him, to the simplicity of bringing a coach an apple, Dr. Semotiuk had the rare ability and knack for making a real difference.
“For over 40 years he looked after me,” Marshall explains. “He’d show up with apple and some sound advice. Whether it was a good outcome on the weekend or a bad outcome on the weekend he had that calming influence.
“I am so fortunate to have had the best coach, the best mentor and friend in my life.”
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