It was from humble origins that Winnipeg came to host the 1967 Pan-American Games. Marking out lanes with tape and chalk at the Minto Armouries, Jim Daly took his sport indoors in 1949 and helped create a track and field program for the University of Manitoba. Following the construction of the Winnipeg Arena Daly began staging meets, training officials and thinking on an international scale.

After chairing an unsuccessful bid for the 1963 Pan-Am Games, Daly used innovative measures (like supplying each nation with sailboats) to convince Latin America countries that it was worth the cost to come to Canada in 1967. Winning over the locals was not any easier. Faced with a hostile public, Daly estimated he made a 150 speeches over the next 5 years erasing a defeatist attitude and assembling a volunteer-laden work force of 9000. With Daly as its Executive Director, the host committee was awarded the Olympic Cup for establishing a new standard of organization. Twenty-seven years later, when Winnipeg was in the process of landing the 1999 Pan-Am Games, Daly was there again lending his expertise and lobbying Caribbean countries for their support.

But that is only part of the story. The manager of Canada’s 1964 Olympic Team to Tokyo, Daly also served an 8 year term on the Board of Tennis Canada, helping to prepare that sport for acceptance into the Olympics. At the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal, he was hired by CBC Radio to do colour commentary for the opening and closing ceremonies along with 8 different sports. Daly was Canada’s Chef De Mission for both the 1986 and 1990 Commonwealth Games.

After quitting coaching in 1978, Daly used his fundraising skills at the University of Manitoba. The initial goal was to come up with 6 million dollars for a new arena and library. When Daly was done the campus had twice that amount and a new field house, as well.