Steve Stavro

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Steve Atanas Stavro, CM (September 27, 1927 – April 24, 2006), born Manoli Stavroff Sholdas, was a Canadian grocery store magnate, horse breeder and sports team owner.

Contents

[edit] Personal life and Knob Hill Farms

Born in Gabresh, Macedonia (Northern Greece), Stavro immigrated to Toronto with his family when he was seven years old to join his father, who had come to Canada in 1927. He attended Duke of Connaught Public School, where he was given the name Steve, and Riverdale Collegiate Institute. He worked in his father's grocery store, Louis Meat Market, at Queen Street and Coxwell Avenue and left school after Grade 10 to work full-time.

In 1951, he and his family opened a new store across the street under the Knob Hill Farms name. Stavro said he took the name off a box of produce from California, although Knob Hill was also the name of a community in Scarborough, Ontario. By 1954, he was running his own grocery store at 425 Danforth Avenue while his older brother, Chris Stavro, managed the original store. By the late 1950s, Stavro was operating nine grocery stores and outdoor markets in Toronto. His father was diagnosed with cancer in 1956 and died in 1960.

In December 1963, Stavro opened his first food "terminal"—a forerunner of the big-box store—which featured low prices and no-frills service. It was located at Don Mills Road and Highway 7 in Markham, Ontario. Eight years later, he opened a second terminal in Pickering, Ontario. A 10,000 square-metre store at Landsowne Avenue and Dundas Street West in Toronto opened in 1975. Through the years, he opened nine terminals in the Greater Toronto Area and a 31,500 square-metre outlet in Cambridge, Ontario, which opened in 1991, billed as the world's largest grocery store.

In 1992, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. At the time, he was said to own a manor house on 100 acres in Campbellcroft, Ontario, a 49-room mansion on Teddington Park in Toronto, a palatial mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, 100 acres at Holland Marsh, and a 300 acre farm in Kentucky.

All Knob Hill Farms stores were shut down in 2000. In 2006, Stavro died in his home at age 78 after a heart attack. He was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery where he built a tomb adorned with icons of many of his achievements including the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Order of Canada, Knights of Malta, Order of the Masons and a statue of Alexander the Great of Macedonia mounted on a horse.

[edit] Stavro and soccer

His first experience with competitive organized soccer was playing centre forward for the Duke of Connaught Public School in Toronto in the late 1930s. The team went on to become Toronto district champions. A devout soccer fan since his youth, he was honoured as a life member of the Canadian Soccer Association.

Over the years he was involved in the organization and management of the Continental Soccer League in 1959, the International Soccer League in 1960, the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League in late 1960, the United Soccer Association in 1966 and the North American Soccer League in 1968.

In 1961, along with industrialist Larry Myslivec and journalist Ed Fitken, Stavro formed the Toronto City Soccer Club which played in the newly created Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League, becoming president of the club. In that first season the team signed well-known British stars Stanley Matthews, Danny Blanchflower, Jackie Mudie and Johnny Haynes, while the player-coach was former Scottish international Tommy Younger. He continued to operate the team until January 1966 when he withdrew the team after the league refused to order the amalgamation of the three Toronto teams.

In 1966, he helped to form the United Soccer Association (USA) with teams from coast to coast across the United States and Canada. Each team in the league in that first season was represented by a well known overseas club, with Toronto City being represented by the famous Scottish team Hibernian. In December of that year the USA merged with the rival National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) to form the North American Soccer League. Later in 1967 Stavro made the decision to sell his professional rights in the NASL to fellow Torontonian Joe Peters who owned the Toronto Falcons.

However, he continued his involvement with soccer by staging international exhibition games at the old baseball park Maple Leaf Stadium, Exhibition Stadium and Varsity Stadium. Those games involved such famous teams as Manchester United F.C., Tottenham Hotspur, AC Fiorentina, Internazionale, Olympiakos, Glasgow Celtic and A.C. Milan.

In 2005, Stavro was inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame as a builder of the sport [1].

[edit] Knob Hill Stables

Stavro became a racehorse owner in 1965, buying three yearlings in partnership with lawyer Joe Kane. Kane got out of the business, and Stavro continued as the owner of Knob Hill Stables.

Stavro bred and raced such thoroughbred stars as Canadian Horses of the Year Benburb and Thornfield, he was voted a Sovereign Award as both outstanding breeder and owner of 1992. It was the year Benburb was Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male after winning the classic Prince of Wales Stakes (Can-IR) and defeating United States star A.P. Indy while winning the Molson Export Million Stakes (Grade II). The following year, Stavro's filly Apelia was Champion sprinter and Bold Debra won the Soveriegn Award for Outstanding Broodmare. Thornfield and another champion, Saoirse, came later. Thornfield was 1999 Horse of the Year and best grass male after winning the Canadian International Stakes (Can-IT). Saoirse was top older female in 2000.

Stavro prided himself on breeding, as opposed to buying, winning thoroughbreds. He campaigned such other important winners as Debra's Victory, Granacus, Megas Vukefalos, Schossberg, and Zadracarta. Granacus and Schossberg were winners south of the border. Granacus won the 1988 Grade I Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, and Schossberg captured the Jerome Handicap and the Philip H. Iselin Handicap.

In 2006, Stavro was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame as a builder of the sport. After his death, one of his horses which he purchased at the Keeneland Yearling sale, Leonnatus Anteas was awarded the Sovereign Award for Champion 2-Year-Old Male Horse

[edit] Maple Leaf Sports

Stavro's Knob Hill Farms sponsored a hockey team in the Metro Junior A League in the 1962-63 season. The team and the league folded after the end of the season.

A long-time friend of Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard, Stavro acquired control of the Leafs and Maple Leaf Gardens following Ballard's death. He became chairman of the board of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., which also owned the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association after establishing a partnership with Larry Tanenbaum. Stavro and Tanenbaum were said to have a poor relationship, as Tanenbaum disputed a report that claimed that Stavro saw him as a favored son. The owners' lounge at the Air Canada Centre was modeled in a Scottish theme with dark wood panels while Stavro was chairman; his successor Tanenbaum had the room remodeled to a modernistic style with some insiders saying that the change was made because the old room reminded him too much of Stavro.

Stavro served as governor of the National Hockey League and chairman of the board of the Air Canada Centre. He was also known in the local Macedonian community to have a friendly competition with Macedonian Mike Ilitch who owned a rival NHL hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings.

Stavro stepped down as Chairman of MLSE in 2003 in favour of Tanenbaum, as part of a restructuring plan that also saw him sell his majority stake to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. Jim Leach, OTTP Senior Vice President of Private Equity, had orchestrated the deal after the closure of Knob Hills Farms chain which had caused rumors that the financial status of MLSE could be affected.

[edit] Honours

  • Honorary lifetime director of the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
  • Honorary director of the Ontario Jockey Club
  • 1993, TOBA Award as North American Thoroughbred Breeder of the Year
  • 1992, Order of Canada
  • 1992, City of Toronto Award of Merit
  • 1992, Beth Sholom Brotherhood Humanitarian Award
  • 1991, Ellis Island Award of Distinction
  • 1988, Decorated Knight Commander, Knights of Malta
  • 1987, Man of the Year, Kupat Holim, Canadian chapter
  • 1985, Canadian Award, John G. Diefenbaker Memorial Foundation
  • 1980, The Knight of the Golden Pencil Award, Food Industry Association of Canada

[edit] Other achievements

Stavro was a director of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, a member of the Executive Committee of the Economic Council of Canada, a trustee of the Ontario Jockey Club, and honorary campaign chairman of Toronto East General Hospital Emergency Critical Care Fund (1987-89).

Stavro was a founding sponsor of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame and a member of its advisory council, founding member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, corporate member of 4-H Canada, member of the board of directors of the John G. Diefenbaker Memorial Foundation, member of the advisory council for the Equine Research Centre, member of the Jockey Club of Canada, member of the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society, and a member of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) of Lexington, Kentucky.

[edit] External links

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