Steve Ince (BA '74) played split end for the York football team from 1971 to 1973 and received OUAA all-star honours in all three years he was a member of the team. The captain of the squad in his final season in 1973, he also set a team record that year for most receptions in a season at 36, a record that stood until 2005. He remains among the team's top 10 all-time in career receptions and receiving yards.
Steve Ince nearly gave up football after graduating from high school but a change of heart the summer before he began university shaped the rest of his life.
“Nobby [Wirkowski] contacted me while I was in high school and invited a few of us to a game. I wasn’t planning on trying to play university football but then as the summer started I realized how much I missed preparing for a new season and knew I needed to play in the fall! I phoned Nobby and identified myself and he welcomed me to the team. It was one of the best things I ever did.”
Ince starred for the Yeomen in the early years of the program’s existence, playing split end from 1971-73. Despite the struggles of the team – the Yeomen won one game in each of the three years that he was there – he was considered to be one of the top players in the conference and received OUAA all-star honours in all three years he was a member of the team. The captain of the squad in his final season, he also set a team record that year for most receptions in a season at 36, a record that stood until 2005. To this day he remains among the team’s top 10 all-time in career receptions and receiving yards.
Playing football was fun, but what Ince thoroughly enjoyed was the time spent with his teammates and the relationships that came out of their playing days.
“Being part of a new team had more good than bad. We were young, mostly all rookies, and we had all come from different high school programs that had been successful. Because we were young and inexperienced we weren’t that good, but we had a lot of fun and I made a lot of friends.”
“It’s hard to say it was a great experience when you only win one game each year, but when I look back on those years, the friends I made and the experiences we had together certainly made my time at York enjoyable. I made some great friends that are still great friends 40 years later.”
After graduating from York in 1974 with a degree in political science, Ince went on to the University of Toronto, where he earned his MBA, and continued to play football long after his university career was over. Along with several York teammates, including quarterback and good friend Gerry Verge, Ince played at the highest level in a Toronto touch football league for 15 years and won numerous championships. He then turned his focus to his career and his family, but never forgot what he learned from his time in the sport.
“When I look back to the experience of playing football in high school and university, I see all the benefits of playing with a team, both in terms of learning to be part of a team and learning to win together. There were some great life lessons that I took from my experiences in football.”
Ince now works as a general manager for a small distribution company and spends his spare time with his family, his wife Sophie, a York graduate in the 1970s, and his children.
