MONTREAL – The McGill University men's rugby program has received a unique endowment to help offset travel expenses, the first such fund for any of the 26 varsity teams operating at the institution. This endowment, currently valued at $80,000, will be known as the Karl Fischer Travel Fund, in honour of the late Karl Fischer – a renowned architect and former rugby player and coach at the University – who passed away in 2019.
 
The fund will be used to help offset the team's travel costs, especially but not limited to the annual Covo Cup game in years when it is played at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Funds remaining and not required for travel in any given year will be reinvested into the endowment. The Cup was initiated in 1974, a year after the untimely death of McGill professor and head coach Peter Covo, who had been planning a centennial celebration of the first intercollegiate game of rugby-style football played in 1874.

Fischer, a McGill graduate [BSc(Arch) 1971, BArch 1972], coached his alma mater from 1973 to 1981, including a 6-3 victory in the 1974 Covo Cup. The contest has continued on an almost annual basis since then and McGill owns a 25-14 lifetime record in the Cup series. Last year's rendezvous, which marked the 150th anniversary of the first-ever meeting, was streamed worldwide on CBC Gem and played before a crowd of 1,807 at Percival Molson Stadium.
 
Born on Feb. 22, 1949, in Gemzse, Hungary, Fischer and his family escaped during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and emigrated to Montreal. As a young man, Fischer excelled at sports and at school. He attended Outremont high school and then McGill, where he played varsity rugby and numerous other intramural sports.
 
As tenacious in business as he was on the field, Fischer opened his own architecture firm in 1984 in Montreal and a branch in New York City in 1999. A self-made man, he designed many of the houses, commercial buildings and condominiums that now grace the skyline in Montreal and New York. A stretch of Bayard Street in Williamsburg, N.Y., became known as Karl Fischer Row after he built three multi-family buildings there.
 
Further contributions to this fund can be made at the following link:
https://www.alumni.mcgill.ca/give/index.php?new=1&formlang=E&allocations=09490
 
 
SOURCE
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
CELL: 514-983-7012
E-MAIL:earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca