OBITUARY
His guidance and influence are his legacy:
H
ow fitting it was that Rob Wearing died on Founder’s Day. On November 23, 2017, as the celebration of the birthday of Selwyn House School got underway, word began to circulate around the room that the man many had come to regard as the heart and soul of this institution was gone. On Sunday, December 3, 2017, there was a celebration of Rob’s life at the Mount Royal Cemetery followed by a reception at the Atwater Club. The tributes to Rob from his family members and friends were funny, heartbreaking and inspirational. Phys-Ed Teacher and Coach Peter Govan spoke warmly about the man he considered his boss and his best friend. It was “Wearing” who launched the Athletic Banquet and insisted that mothers be invited, Govan pointed out. As part of the task of redesigning the school’s Athletic Department from the ground up, it was Wearing who chose a gryphon as the athletic teams’ mascot, to avoid confusion with the LCC lion. “And, thus, the Gryphon took flight,” Govan said. “He had natural charisma,” explained Phys-Ed Teacher and Coach Alfie Paoletti. “He was the kind of leader you wanted to perform for. He was larger than life. A man of few words, but, oh, what effective words.” “He had an unbelievable presence about him,” said Rob’s son, Ben, a Selwyn House Old Boy from the Class of 1994. “He lived his life with integrity and authenticity. He was a natural leader and a mentor to thousands.” Written tributes to Rob Wearing poured in after his death, including many testimonials from former students who said Rob had changed their lives. One Old Boy summed it up: “Truly one of the best men I’ve ever known.” Retirement When Rob retired from Selwyn House in 2006, the interview article that follows was published in Veritas: On the day in 1973 when Rob Wearing Veritas, page 4
Rob Wearing accepting the Speirs Medal in 2017
first came chugging down Argyle Street in his van, the Selwyn House boys were not sure what to make of their new phys-ed teacher. “I had an open-neck shirt and very long hair,” Rob recalls. “Of course the kids were all immaculately dressed and with short hair. So I didn’t meet the dress code, and I felt quite awkward.” Rob had just come from a five-year stint teaching and coaching at an innercity Toronto school where there was a huge sports program. “I was coming from a school where there were a lot of pretty fast guys,” he recalls. “Coming to Selwyn House, the calibre of athletics wasn’t the same. It was then that I wondered what I’d gotten myself into.”
In those days, Selwyn House School was a much different place. The male teachers had their own, smoke-filled staff room. The school had only 350 students, and George Dewland cooked all the meals and did all the cleaning. “At that time, the school had a very academic nature,” Rob says. “Dr. Speirs was still here teaching linguistics, and Jack Martin was teaching Latin. Everybody participated in intramural sports. There may have been some athletic competition against other private schools, but certainly not against public schools.” “Time was a bit of a problem. When I taught in Toronto you naturally practiced five days a week. When I came here the teams were only practicing three days. I
