Terry Fox Run

Sunday is the Terry Fox Run to commemorate one the greatest ever Canadians, and to raise money for cancer research. He is one of only two truly great, famous people I have had a personal encounter with, and both were a consequence of playing basketball. (The other is blip for another day.)

Terry was a first year university student in 1977, at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Burnaby, BC. He played basketball on SFU’s second team, known as the Junior Varsity (JV) team. I played on a men’s team that played against the college teams from the Vancouver area. Terry was one of the weaker players on his team and I was the weakest on our team. As a consequence we guarded, marked, or checked each other. Not being particularly good we were pretty physical with each other. We did not make a good first impression. But that changed very quickly.

In the spring of 1978, one of the coaches from SFU stayed with us for several months while working a summer job. He asked, ‘Do you know Terry Fox?’, then proceeded to inform us that Terry had been diagnosed with aggressive cancer in his leg and that it had been amputated above the knee.

Nothing much was heard about Terry for a couple of years. At the end of summer 1980, Terry came to our then home of Prince George, BC, to participate in a 27 km. road race called the Prince George to Boston Marathon. (The winner won a trip to Boston to run in that marathon). We knew little more than that Terry was running on one one leg and a prosthetic. He finished dead last, hours after the last finisher. After that race he announced he was going to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

That run was called The Marathon of Hope and the goal was to get one dollar from each and every Canadian: a total of 24 million dollars. The run began in St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador. Terry ran a MARATHON (26+ miles, 42+ km.) each and every day, for 143 days, and 5373 Km. (3339 Mi.) before he was forced to quit in Thunder Bay, Ont., when his cancer returned and had spread to his lungs. He died June 28, 1981, one month short of his 23rd birthday.

Canadians took up Terry’s mission as a collective. A telethon raised millions. On Sept. 13, 1981 the first Terry Fox Run, a ten kilometer race, jog, skate, walk or ride, was held in virtually every town and city across this country, and in many other locations around the world. It has been run every year since. In that time over $800 Million dollars has been raised in Terry’s name. He is a hero to every Canadian who knows his story, including me.

This is this year’s Terry Fox Run t-shirt. The theme this year is ‘Dear Terry’. Basically write down what you would say to Terry today, if you could.

Extra: the statue, of Terry dipping his prosthetic into the Atlantic Ocean, in St. John’s, commemorates the start of the Marathon of Hope, one of many statues of Terry across the country.

Extra, extra- that fabulous face.