Lee Wright, a 1966 Physical Education graduate (Kinesiology), was one of UBC’s outstanding field hockey players and a member of one of Canada’s notable sports families. Wright played on some of UBC’s most impressive field hockey teams during the early 1960s, emerging as one of the top players in Canada. From 1962 through 1966, Wright was one of six Olympians on the Thunderbird team. During that time, the Blue & Gold, under coach Eric Broom, won five consecutive Vancouver Field Hockey Championships, a stretch that included an amazing 36 game winning streak. The Thunderbirds were recognized at this time as the best club in Canada, playing in the competitive Vancouver league where a good deal of Canada’s field hockey talent existed at the time.
The early 1960s saw the development of a Canadian National Team for men’s field hockey and it would be Thunderbirds such as Wright, Victor Warren, John Young and Peter Buckland who would not only be inaugural members but integral parts of this team through its first decade and beyond. Lee represented this country at two Olympics; 1964 in Tokyo, Canada’s first field hockey Olympics and then again in 1976 in Montreal. He finished his career having played in more than 60 international matches.
Playing for the National team at the 1975 Pan-American Games, Lee won a silver medal as did his wife Thelma, a middle distance runner at the Games and who is a B.C. and UBC Sports Hall of Farner.
In the words of Lee’s former teammate John McBryde, “From 1968 through 1975 Lee was the most experienced and highly capped player on the [National] team and the first to attain 50 caps … he served as vice -captain on several occasions. Lee was the only player from Canada’s 1964 Olympic team to play in the 1976 Olympics, a remarkable achievement as it spanned a period of 12 years.”
During the late 1970s and early ’80s Wright coached both the B.C. and Canadian men’s field hockey teams. For over 30 years, he also coached the Vancouver Hawks and their Junior program. One could say the Wright family is UBC’s “First Family” of Olympic sport. Lee’s father Harold was an Olympic sprinter for Canada. His wife Thelma is an Olympian and Hall of Famer in her own right while a third generation of Wrights, Thelma and Lee’s sons Anthony and Philip, are both UBC graduates and Olympians. Five Olympians over three generations!
In recent years Wright has been supportive of the UBC men’s field hockey team in a mentoring role while he and his family made major contributions required to make the UBC campus’ Wright Field a reality in 2002 as both Lee and Thelma have been diligent supporters of their alma mater. Lee was inducted into the UBC Hall of Fame in 2019.
Fred Hume, 2017
