Richard (Rick) Herrington
Sport: Lacrosse: Year Inducted: 2002
There was nothing fancy about Richard “Rick” Herrington’s introduction to the game of lacrosse.
It was a simple pastime. As a youngster, he, along with a squad of other kids, spent hours throwing a lacrosse ball against the old Dominion Store exterior wall. And when they weren’t doing that after school and on weekends, they would meet to play in the adjacent field on the corner of First and Augustus streets in Cornwall. Every kid on the block and from around town would meet at about 5 o’clock and play until the sun went down. Eventually, the “First Street Gang”, as they would became known, grew to about 50 kids, all armed with hickory lacrosse sticks.
It was sandlot lacrosse at its finest.
The parents, at the urging of the young lacrosse players, decided to build a lacrosse box in the vacant lot. The seeds for the Cornwall Minor Lacrosse Association were sown. The CMLA playing out of the outdoor box at Alexandria Park would become one of the city’s largest minor sports programs. Rick and his friends became part of the fledgling Minor Association.
The program paved the way for his successful lacrosse career which would take him through the junior ranks to the strong Quebec senior lacrosse league and a shot at professional lacrosse.
Rick’s first big step up the lacrosse ladder came when he was signed by the Drummondville Athletics of the QSLL. In 1968, the Athletics won the league Championship and Rick, in his rookie season, finished 10th in league scoring. The league included many of Canada’s top lacrosse players, some of whom had been recruited from British Columbia.
The next year Rick joined the Wallaceburgh Red Devils of the senior Ontario lacrosse league. Among the league’s scoring leaders in his first four seasons, Rick blossomed in year five with 92 points – best on the Devils – and finished eighth in the league scoring race. He was named the team’s Most Valuable Player.
The following year he was drafted by John Ferguson’s Montreal Quebecois of the new National Professional Lacrosse League but after a brief stint left the club to take a job with Domtar in Cornwall. He soon put his playing experience to good use in his hometown.
He was selected to coach the Cornwall Minor Lacrosse Association team entered in the Canadian Juvenile Francophone Tournament in Quebec City. The team defeated Quebec in the Championship game.