Still Skating Fast

Douglas H. Mitchell ’59 never slowed down much after his undergraduate days at Colorado College. In January, he'll receive the Order of Canada, that country's highest honor, for his lifelong contributions to Cana-dian intercollegiate athletics and economic development.

Mitchell, who played center and linebacker for legendary CC football coach Jerry Carle as a senior, continues to be a mover and shaker in athletics in his native province of Alberta, where he returned after earning a law degree from the University of British Columbia.

He currently is national co-chairman and Calgary regional managing partner of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Canada’s second-largest law firm. In 1991, he founded the Borden Ladner Gervais Awards, which annually honor the top male and female athletes in Canadian Interuniversity Sport, the equivalent of the U.S.’s NCAA. The prestigious award also includes a $5,000 postgraduate scholarship and represents the pinnacle of intercollegiate sports in Canada.

A member of the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, Mitchell was appointed by the province in 1994 to chair a high-profile committee that conducted a review of government involvement in professional sports. Last June, at the annual College Sports Information Directors of America workshop in Calgary, he delivered the keynote speech and served on a panel discussion about crisis management.

“Sports has been such a big part of my life,” says Mitchell, who spent four years (1980-84) on the National Hockey League’s board of directors, five more (1984-89) as commissioner of the Canadian Football League, and nine years as the radio color analyst for the CFL’s Calgary Stampede.

“I’ll never forget my first game at CC,” he says. “We were playing Idaho State in Pocatello, and they really intimidated us by running back the opening kickoff for a touchdown. But we still won the game, 8-7!”