Jeff Virgo’s Hall of Fame Induction: A Story of Showing Up and Not Giving Up

On June 3, Jeff Virgo was inducted into the Saugeen Shores Sports Hall of Fame — and true to form, his first reaction wasn’t pride. It was a surprise. A personal trainer, group fitness instructor, and Fitness Coordinator at Lakeshore Recreation, Jeff went into the Hall as an Athlete, though committee members noted he could just as easily have been recognized as a Builder. Either way, he never set out to be inducted into anything.

I was kind of taken back when they told me I was being inducted. — Jeff Virgo

For Jeff, the medals, the programs, and the hundreds of kids he has coached were never about recognition. They were about something simpler: getting back on the field after injury, and bringing as many people along with him as he could. His induction is really a story about what happens when you keep showing up — so here is the journey that earned it. Adaptive sports, it turns out, aren’t a consolation prize; they’re a doorway to competition, community, and a second act few people see coming.

Getting Back in the Game After Injury

After an injury ended one chapter of his athletic life, Jeff wasn’t certain what was still possible. He had grown up around sport — he played for the Battalion hockey team before his injury — and he wanted that feeling back. What changed things was a military program called Soldier On, which sent service members to national team camps to try adaptive sports and discover what might fit.

So he dove in with both feet. Wheelchair racing. Adaptive throwing — launching a javelin from a seated throwing chair. Along the way he trained under coaches like Randy Miller and Earl Farrell , plus mentors from national and provincial sport bodies.

I kind of got that world-class training and coaching. It pushed me to want to do more.— Jeff Virgo

From “Just a Camp” to the Podium

Not every milestone arrived on schedule. At a competition in San Diego, Jeff signed up for swimming, wheelchair basketball, and archery thinking it was a low-stakes camp — until coaches from the U.S. national Paralympic swim team told him he was racing against roughly fifteen other athletes. He simply decided to try his best and see what happened. He walked away with a couple of silver medals in swimming and placed well in the other events on his first attempts.

He credits an athlete’s instinct built up long before his injury. As he puts it, he was “always an okay athlete” who understood how the movement worked — and that understanding carried over into adaptive sport.

Finding Peace on the Water

If one sport captured his heart, it was kayaking. The appeal wasn’t the competition — it was the quiet. Paddling the river out to the lake near Southampton, or from Gobles Grove to Chantry Island, gave him room to reflect, with the water acting as a kind of healing agent. It wasn’t effortless. The kayaks were tippy, and staying upright forced him into serious core and trunk work. 

For Canoe style competition, in preparation for the Paralympics, during warm-weather training in Florida, Team Canada Olympian Adam van Koeverden motored past him; Jeff tried to keep pace, took a couple of strokes, and went straight into the water. It took until his third trip to nationals to actually finish a VL3 race — and when he did, he earned a medal after about three years of hard work.

It just made you forget about the injury. Sport gets you away from the day-to-day, away from your struggles, and puts focus on something you can keep building. — Jeff Virgo

He carried that competitive drive to the Invictus Games, competing in 2014 and 2016 — in swimming, indoor rowing, and sitting volleyball — before returning as an Ambassador for the 2017 Toronto Games. Comrades off the court became rivals on it, and many of the athletes he faced went on to the Paralympics, giving him a real measuring stick for how far he had come.

Building Something for the Next Generation: The All Abilities Soccer Program

In 2021, Jeff co-founded the All Abilities soccer program so that anyone with a physical or intellectual disability could play. Crucially, minor soccer covers all of the associated costs, so families never have to worry about the price of participating.

Keeping the program close to home was a deliberate choice. As a para-athlete, Jeff had to travel to bigger centres for everything — manageable for someone who could drive, but a real barrier for families already making constant trips to appointments. So he built something in their own backyard, drawing players from Kincardine, Ripley, Walkerton, the Saugeen Shores area, and up the peninsula. The reach is wide enough that a rain delay means giving people two or three hours’ notice, since some families need ninety minutes just to reach the fields in Port Elgin.

Why soccer? Partly because he has played it his whole life, and partly because a friend asked him to coach. Coaching turned out to be a calling — especially after his military service. Over the years that calling expanded from a women’s rep team to varsity high school, U21, U18, and travelling teams. One season he coached three teams at once. These days, he coaches his stepdaughter’s team, knowing the window for that won’t stay open forever.

Why Soccer — and Why It Matters

Ask Jeff what makes soccer special and he points to the team itself. You can’t dribble through everybody, and you can’t make every save — you have to trust your teammates. That dependence, he believes, quietly builds character in young players.

I’m coaching you as a human being. I want you to be a good person when you grow up. — Jeff Virgo

It’s also one of the most accessible sports there is. Cleats, shin pads, shorts, and a t-shirt are about all a player needs, which opens the door to kids who might be priced out of other sports.

Within the All Abilities program, that accessibility produces something even more valuable: when his stepdaughter and her friends come to help coach, they don’t see a disability — they see a person, and they want to help that individual. For the volunteers and adults who pitch in, the hour and a half on the field is a weekly reset that reminds everyone how much the kids are giving.

Not everyone will reach an elite level, and Jeff is the first to say that’s fine. Plenty of people play to make friends, stay active, and feel like they belong — and that, to him, is the whole point of sport.

Jeff Virgo’s Message for Parents on the Sidelines

Jeff doesn’t shy away from the harder side of youth sports, either. He has seen belligerent parents, sideline politics, and the anxiety it creates for kids who only want to play — including the now-common habit of posting children’s tough moments on social media. His advice is direct: let kids have fun, and let them fail.

Learning to play, he says, is like learning to crawl and walk — a child has to fall a few times, and as a parent that can be nerve-wracking to watch. Be positive, cheer them on, but remember that the share of kids who go on to play for a living is very, very small. Far better to teach them to be good human beings who can carry those skills into post-secondary school, an apprenticeship, or whatever they choose.

They’re just human beings first. They’re trying their hardest, and all they want from their family is support and a chance to ask, ‘How did I do, and what can I work on?— Jeff Virgo

His warning is just as plain: parents fighting on the sidelines, or making kids cry at the field, don’t build a good society — and they push children away from the very sports that could serve them for life. Because the benefits don’t expire. As Jeff notes, someone who never played a sport might pick up Pickleball, Soccer or Squash at 65 and have the best time of their life — if the support is there to encourage them.

The Real Finish Line

Jeff Virgo’s induction into the Saugeen Shores Sports Hall of Fame celebrates a long list of accomplishments, but the throughline is simpler than any medal count: showing up, and not giving up.

His adaptive sports journey proves that injury, hardship, or a late start don’t have to be the end of an athletic life — sometimes they’re the beginning of a more meaningful one. And through the All Abilities program, he has turned his own second act into a first chance for dozens of kids across the region. Today he carries that same message forward as a coach, an Invictus Games Ambassador, and a motivational speaker in schools and at community events.

Nominated by Ron Moss, Jeff shares the honour with fellow inductee Launa Smith, the cornhole athlete sponsored by Lakeshore Recreation — a pairing that says a lot about how broadly this community defines athletic achievement, and how proudly it shows up to celebrate its own.

Want to be part of it? The All Abilities soccer program welcomes players and volunteers from across the Saugeen Shores area and beyond. To get involved or learn more about adaptive and inclusive programming, visit the Saugeen Shores United FC All Abilities Program.