A Sporting Chance: Achievements of African-Canadian Athletes

William Humber

Nov 2004 · Dundurn

About this ebook

Over the years, Canadians have smugly asserted their country’s more tolerant culture in race relations. Yet as this story of African-Canadian participation in sports demonstrates, the record is far more troubling. In reality, Canada’s record in matters of race was a disturbing blend of occasional good intentions and ugly practices. The study of the Black athletic experience in Canada is not only a revealing portrait into our past, but also one more demonstration of some time-honoured truths about human achievement and the necessity of the public will to provide open and fair forums for equal access to participation.

Presented in a chronological sequence, individual sports are presented along with the leading athletes who brought grace and a determination to achieve. Included are George Dixon, Sam Langford, Reuben Mayes, Ray Lewis, Sam Richardson, Dr. Phil Edwards, Jackie Robinson, Harry Jerome, Earl Walls, Donovan Bailey, Sylvia Sweeney, Molly Killingbeck, Herb Carnegie, Jamaal Magliore, Perdita Felicien and Jarome Iginla, to name but a few of the fine athletes who form a part of Canada’s sports heritage.

"As Canada’s foremost baseball historian, Bill Humber has chronicled another fascinating chapter from Canada’s rich sports history. This is an excellent read – entertaining, educational and expertly researched."

– Brian McFarlane, Sports Family Ltd.

About the author

A Sporting Chance follows in a line of groundbreaking stories written by William Humber about Canada’s sports past, including histories of baseball and bicycling in Canada. Acknowledged on their broadcasts as one of Canada’s leading sports historians by, among others, the CBC, TV Ontario and TSN, he has spoken at sports history conferences in the United States and the United Kingdom as well as in Canada. Bill has taught a credit subject on Canadian sports history for the last ten years at Seneca College in Toronto where he is the chair of the college’s Centre for the Built Environment, a North American leader in providing education on urban sustainability for technologists.

Humber is a selector for Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, Canada’s Baseball Hall of Fame, as well as his hometown Clarington Sports Hall of Fame, and was an honorary inductee into Saskatchewan’s Baseball Hall of Fame in 2004. He is included in the Canadian Who’s Who, was a recipient of a Queen’s Golden Jubilee medal in 2003, and lives with his family in Bowmanville, Ontario, where he is active in many aspects of his community’s character and future growth.

This is Humber’s tenth book and second with Natural Heritage Books, his first being Bowmanville: A Small Town at the Edge (1997).

Spider Jones is one of Canada's most dynamic speakers with a story, now available in his book, Out of the Darkness (ECW Press, 2003). He hosts the ESPN Classic Series on boxing with his long-time pal George Chuvalo. Spider can be heard on Canada's premier radio station CFRB where, in honour of his long ago days in the fight game, he seldom pulls his punches.