O’Leary: TSN’s Farhan Lalji, CFL’s Steve Daniel head to media HOF
Because the 2024 class of the Canadian Soccer Corridor of Fame put together to be inducted on Friday evening in Hamilton, the ultimate two inductees of this yr’s class are in Vancouver, watching from afar.
Steve Daniel and Farhan Lalji — this yr’s media entrants to the Corridor — will formally be inducted of their hometown in November, as a part of the Soccer Reporters of Canada annual assembly on Nov. 17, the morning of the 111th Gray Cup.
Whereas the previous gamers and builders are inducted in Hamilton tonight, it feels mandatory to present Daniel and Lalji a second within the solar, as they’re each woven deeply into the material of the CFL.
RELATED
» Watch the 2024 class of the Canadian Soccer Corridor of Fame be inducted stay at 6 p.m. ET
» O’Leary: Inexperienced, Owens, Dressler fed off of one another in HOF careers
» What a catch! Trio of receivers highlights CFHOF Class of ’24
» Quote Board: HOFers Marvin Coleman and Vince Goldsmith
» Go to the Canadian Soccer Corridor of Fame
» Who’s gonna win? CFL Choose ‘Em offered by Previous Dutch is now open!
» Enroll and watch CFL video games on CFL+ within the U.S. and Internationally
Lalji has been with TSN for 27 years and is a fixture within the soccer scene in Vancouver and throughout Canada (Picture provided by Farhan Lalji)
Daniel is the league’s affiliate vice chairman of soccer analytics. He labored with the BC Lions in 2005 and joined the league in a full-time capability in 2007. The Vancouver native got here to the league after an 11-year run within the NBA with the Vancouver and Memphis Grizzlies as their stats individual. He has taken the CFL’s stat-keeping into the longer term, first digitizing the league’s monumental historical past, then steering the league into deep statistical evaluation.
Lalji, additionally from Vancouver, joined TSN in 1997. Because the Vancouver bureau reporter, he has reported on the Lions and Canucks, whereas additionally frequenting NFL stadiums all through their season, amongst different assignments. CFL followers will know him because the face of the Lions and a fixture in CFL protection, whether or not he’s internet hosting on the panel, working sidelines in a recreation or breaking information all year long. Lalji has additionally coached at the highschool stage for over 30 years and is captivated with rising the sport throughout Canada and particularly in B.C..
That the 2 of them, each backbones to the sport in their very own methods, are going into the Corridor collectively is completely applicable. They just lately simply noticed one another for the primary time since they’d realized within the spring that they might be inducted collectively.
“I came visiting him and shook his hand and I stated to him, ‘It’s only a whole honour to go in with you, as a result of your soccer expertise is wholly completely different than mine however we care simply as a lot in our personal methods concerning the recreation and affecting the sport and the way it’s seen by different individuals. You inform them issues, I inform them issues,’” Daniel stated.
“I stated to him, ‘I believe we’ve been about as profitable as each other. And he turned to me and he stated, ‘Steve, to go in with you makes all of it the higher.’”
“It means a ton, as a result of Steve and I’ve recognized one another for the reason that mid ’90s when he was working with the Grizzlies,” Lalji stated. “That’s once we first met.
“I liked overlaying the Grizzlies. Steve and I most likely spent 250 days, recreation nights for six years, sitting 50 toes from one another.
“I had a complete appreciation for what he was doing, and simply the problem of that job and the eagerness he has for the stats and having the ability to inform the tales that method by means of numbers. As we’ve fully advanced into an period of analytics, Steve was forward of the curve. He would give you numbers that at the moment are being considered the norm; Steve was doing that 15 years in the past. The league was benefiting by it and we are able to inform tales due to it.
“Steve and I’ve recognized one another for a very long time. We’re good buddies. I’ve a variety of respect for him. He’s such man, so to go in with him is admittedly cool.”
Daniel created the league’s first complete database to offer media members and the CFL with real-time, in-game entry to analytics. Because the supply of statistical data for such a very long time, Daniel is commonly the go-to for gamers, coaches and CFL entrance workplace varieties, who haven’t any hesitation in reaching out to him personally for additional information. Telephone calls at house from CFL forms of every kind have turn out to be the norm for him and for his endlessly affected person spouse, Carol.
A non-voting member of the CFHOF’s choice committee, Daniel was shocked to see his identify on the listing when the group met this yr. It cemented a key tenet of his work within the recreation: acceptance. Former Lions’ head coach and normal supervisor Wally Buono advised him the group wished him within the corridor due to his affect on the sport. Daniel considered the road from Tracy Chapman’s tune, Quick Automotive: I felt like I belong.
“I began to cry,” he stated. “That’s what this has finished for me. They care and make you’re feeling such as you’re a part of them. That’s my level in that tune. For me, it’s actually private.”
Lalji realized of his induction by chance, when HOF committee member Darrell Davis known as him up, assuming that he already knew. It was an inauspicious technique to get the information, however Lalji felt he was owed that. He really had finished the identical to longtime Montreal Gazette reporter Herb Zurkowsky when he was inducted in 2008.
Lalji runs by means of an extended listing of giants in Vancouver media and throughout the nation when he thinks about what it means to be inducted. There’s Zurkowsky, J.P. McConnell. He remembers his first Lions’ press convention and seeing Al Davidson, “guys that you just thought have been bigger than life figures and now you’re in there,” he stated.
“You concentrate on these individuals initially and the league itself. It’s simply so stuffed with nice individuals. I discover that overlaying soccer is a completely completely different expertise as of late than overlaying hockey. Protecting soccer, particularly the CFL, doesn’t even really feel like work as a result of there’s such an appreciation nonetheless for what we do. Individuals need to be coated they usually’re simply really easy to cope with. There are a variety of issues you concentrate on, however this league has so many nice tales, proper? So it’s fairly cool to be part of that storytelling.”
Like Daniel, Lalji additionally thanked his spouse, Mary, who has supported him by means of the calls for and odd hours of reporting. She “was a large assist” when he launched a brand new soccer program in New Westminster in 2003.
Each thought it might be good to be in Hamilton this weekend on the Corridor of Fame with the remainder of the inductees, however a hometown induction — full with family and friends readily in a position to attend — awaits by way of the Soccer Reporters of Canada in two months’ time.