Darren Campbell
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 23/99) - Anybody who has played fastball in the NWT for any length of time knows the name Andy Tereposky all too well.

If they have played with the renowned pitcher, they know the pleasure of the quick, one-hour and 15 minute games thanks to opposing batters who cant hit his stuff.

And if you've played against him, you know the frustration of flailing away wildly at his fastball, riser or drop ball.

In short, Tereposky is one good fastball pitcher and he loves playing the game. So much so, that at 39 years of age (he turns 40 in April), Tereposky has no intention of hanging up his cleats just yet.

"When I went to the Western Canadian Masters (a few weeks ago) there were guys in their 50s there," says Tereposky, indicating he might play that long as well. "I don't know what Id do if I didn't play."

Tereposkys love of the sport started early while growing up in Abbotsford, B.C. He played minor ball and hockey there until his mother, Terry, moved herself, 11-year-old Andy and his younger sister Judy to Yellowknife where she had found work in the NWTs capital with the Department of Health. They would make that move in March 20, 1972.

Moving to the North was not easy for Tereposky. Although his parents had divorced, he was very close to his family, which included four older sisters. But they did not follow Andy and Judy to Yellowknife. Instead, they stayed back in B.C.

That fact and adjusting to living in a new place made the move less than ideal at the time.

"When I came I didn't know what to expect. We had a real close family and I had friends (in Abbotsford). It was hard to move," says Tereposky.

"For the first part you're trying to get your bearings but after the first six months to a year I could have cared less about going back to B.C."

Of course, it was a much smaller Yellowknife that Tereposky moved to in 1972 (approximately 6,000 people) and the city ended around where the fire station is today. At that time, development along Old Airport Road was as Tereposky puts it, "pretty skimpy".

He would fit into Yellowknife nicely though. When he lived in B.C., Tereposky played all kinds of sports, from fastball and swimming to soccer, hockey and football.

Things did not change much once he got settled into Yellowknife. Tereposky took advantage of the city's active sports scene.

"It (Yellowknife) was a good place for kids to grow up. There was lots of sports," says Tereposky.

However, as much as he loved all sports, fastball and hockey would be the ones he concentrated most of his time on. Tereposky was good enough at hockey to represent the NWT on their team at the 1976 Arctic Winter Games in Schefferville, Quebec.

He would eventually earn more of a name for himself in fastball, using his powerful right arm, which could throw pitches in the high 80-mile-an-hour range, to play on teams all over the NWT, Canada and even the United States and New Zealand.

It was no accident that Tereposky became such a good fastball pitcher. He admits that he and fellow Yellowknife pitcher and fastball veteran Paul Gard were always hanging around the ball field as they grew up.

While they watched the senior players a lot, they also paid close attention to the Yellowknife Junior Merchants, a team both would eventually play and star for.

Tereposky remembers he and Gard always watching the Merchants practise and looking up to players like Greg Vaydik. It was easy to find the Merchants, as they practised for two hours every day back in their glory days of the 1970s. It was that kind of hard work and commitment, along with talent, that allowed the Merchants to win the Canadian Junior Fastball Championships in 1974.

The NWT usually does not enjoy that kind of success at the national level. The accomplishment certainly impressed Tereposky.

"When I heard they won, I was playing ball with Paul Gard in the park there and we couldn't believe it. It was the small town doing good," says Tereposky.

After growing up watching the Merchants, it was not long before he was pitching for the team himself. Tereposky did so from 1979 to 1981. During that time, Gard was the teams number 1 chucker, while Tereposky was the Merchants number two pitcher.

Although the Merchants would not win a Canadian title during his playing days, they came very close. At the 1979 nationals in Richmond, B.C., they would finish in second place. Not surprisingly it is one of Tereposkys favourite sport memories.

What allowed a team from a small town in the NWT to do so well at the national level had as much to do with team togetherness as talent, according to Tereposky.

"We had good team chemistry," says Tereposky. "Everybody knew everyone and most of the guys who played ball also played hockey together."

Tereposky may have spent a lot of the time on the ball diamond but he also had a life outside of that. He graduated from Sir John Franklin high school in 1978. From 1976 to 1982 he would work for Burns Meats.

It was in 1982 that Tereposky switched to a career as a civil servant, a career he has stuck with to this day -- with a little detour along the way thanks to his pitching talents.

From 1982 to 1987, Tereposky would work as a property manager for the GNWT in Yellowknife, Inuvik and Hay River. Tereposky liked what he did but he still had the yearning to play competitive fastball. Much to his delight, he would get the chance to do that in March of 1987 when a senior mens team from his old hometown of Abbotsford gave him a call.

Asked to go down to California for spring training with the Abbotsford Fastest Flite, Tereposky jumped at the chance. The invitation would lead to Tereposky gaining a spot on the Flites roster as their number two pitcher. But the Yellowknifer pitched so well for the Flite that it was not long before he became their top chucker.

The Flite, who got Tereposky a job while he stayed there, played 120 games a year against some of the best fastball players in Canada and the United States. It was the kind of competitive fastball Tereposky always wanted to play.

After three seasons of that, he moved on to New Zealand from September 1989 to March of 1990 playing for the Stoke Valley Giants in the Hutt Valley League. Tereposky says he loved the experience but realized maybe it was time to work on a career outside of the ball diamond.

"I missed Yellowknife the whole time I was away and I was getting kind of old to be cruising around everywhere playing ball," says Tereposky.

After moving back to Yellowknife in 1991, he went to work for municipal and community affairs. However, it wasn't long before he was on the move again -- to Cambridge Bay as the territorial government's senior lands officer in 1995.

Tereposky admits it was not a move he wanted to make but it was either go to Cambridge Bay or face the possibility of getting laid off. So, off to Cambridge Bay he went and for two and a half years he was the senior lands officer. After that job, he worked for the hamlet as their planning, land and development officer.

It was not until October of 1998 that Tereposky made it back to Yellowknife, this time as the manager of lands for the territorial government. In his job, Tereposky looks after lands and works with the communities to make sure everything is in order as those lands are transferred to the community governments.

It is a busy job with the large number of land claims going on in the NWT right now. The work does not bother Tereposky though, who arrives at work around 7:30 a.m. every morning and says he could happily spend the next 15 years in his current job.

"I like my job. I look forward to it, which is good because I know a lot of people could care less," says Tereposky.

As it turns out, spending all that time playing on fastball and hockey teams over the years has proved useful in his profession. Now in charge of a staff of 14 in his department, Tereposky uses a management style that he must have acquired from years of co-existing with a variety of different personalities on different teams.

"Here we try to be a team. I try to let the team figure out what we want to do, instead of me telling them what to do," says Tereposky. "I'm a big believer in making sure we communicate."