A Sporting Chance. William Humber

      Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc. acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We acknowledge the support of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) and the Association for the Export of Canadian Books.

       Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Spider Jones

PART ONE

1. The Black Experience in Canada

2. The Sporting Scene

PART TWO

3. Canada’s Early Years

       4. Looking Outside Canada for Opportunity

       5. Black Baseball’s Early Days in Canada

       6. Sporting Immigrants and Their Descendants

       7. Running for Canada

       8. Lonely Years of Achievement

       9. Immigration’s Great Rewards

       10. The Fruits of Struggle

       11. Hockey: The Canadian Specific

       12. Visiting Heroes

       13. Into the Future

       Epilogue

       Sources

       Index

       About the Author

Acknowledgements

      A history is more than a simple record of the past. It attempts to broaden our understanding of both another time and of our own.

      My interest in the sporting achievements of African-Canadian athletes dates back to my research on Canada’s baseball, cycling and Olympic history. I continually discovered that the isolation of many minorities, and in particular that of Black athletes, from the sporting mainstream was not limited to the United States but played a significant role in Canada’s development.

      In the process I hope to open a window on the Canadian experience of some of its first citizens. This includes the years in which the Black population was so small as to be almost invisible, to the impact of immigration and the transformation in Canadian sporting achievement. Today issues surrounding race continue to be part of a larger public dialogue, even as a broader understanding of what it means to be Canadian and the rise of a generation prepared to describe themselves as ethnically ambiguous transcends older and more limited definitions of identity.

      Thanks to Barry Penhale and Jane Gibson and their extraordinary staff at Natural Heritage Books for making this book possible. A tip of the hat to Ken Pearson and Sheldon Taylor who reviewed earlier versions of this book, and special regards to my favourite radio personality and long time friend Chuck “Spider” Jones.

      Others who provided help included my neighbour Hugh Walters, Tony Techko, members of the BigUp Volleyball organization, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and its director Alan Stewart, Phil Edwards’ daughter Gwen Emery, Ray Lewis, David Crichton, Karen Clarke, E.G. Hastings, Donna Ford, Bill Linton, Melissa Thomas, Ed Grenda, James Duplacey, David Shury, Kevin Walsh, Renaldo Nehemiah, Woodbine Entertainment, my brother Larry Humber, and many others, including students in my Canadian sports history course at Seneca College.

      Appreciation, as always, to my family including Cathie and our children Brad, Darryl and Karen.

      I dedicate this book to the almost forgotten Bob Berry, champion rower, barred from competition in a Toronto Regatta, a bare month after Canada became a nation. Let this be a rebuke to the behaviour of small-minded men. Berry was a true Canadian and of that company, as described in Ecclesiastes, whose “bodies are buried in peace but their name liveth for evermore.”

Foreword

      I’ve got a high noon hook-up with a publisher who’s expressed deep interest in another book I’ve been working on. The rendezvous is to take place in downtown Toronto