And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 1999 15:10:18 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Lynne Moss-Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
HONOURS WELL DESERVED
Brantford Expositor Staff August 8, 1999
It's a little more than 50 years since the death of Tom Longboat, one of the greatest
athletes of the century. Longboat, born at Six Nations in 1886, was one of the
greatest long distance runners of all time. He won the 1907 Boston Marathon and there
is a tale of him beating a horse in a 12-mile race. Though he collapsed from heat
exhaustion during the 1906 Olympic marathon, he went on in the next few years to beat
all the best runners in the world.
In fact, it can fairly be said that he almost invented the sport. Bruce Kidd, no
slouch as a runner himself, and the author of a Longboat biography, notes that
Longboat revolutionized the way runners trained, emphasizing long, slow distances
while others stressed speed. Before too long, after having fallen behind Longboat in
too many races, those others started emulating the style of the Onondaga athlete and
his training regimen caught on.
Though Longboat was as close to an national hero as one could get in the days in the
early part of the century, pre-televison, it was really only many years after his
death that steps were taken to honor his accomplishments. In 1985 a plaque was
unveiled in his honor at Ohsweken. Just last week, Brantford city council decided to
dedicate a street to him, the appropriately named Tom Longboat Run. And then this week
came the news that Longboat will be among those great Canadian to be featured in a
series of new postage stamps called The Millennium Collection. The series, according
to a Canada Post spokesman, celebrates the people and places that have made Canada the
country it is today. Among others to be featured are prime minister and Nobel peace
prize winner Lester Pearson, famed pianist Glenn Gould and folk singer and author
Felix Leclerc.
Despite attaining great fame at a very young age, Longboat spent his last years in
obscurity at Six Nations. He lived a simple life, working for a time as a street
sweeper; he struggled with diabetes and the death of a child. When he died in 1949,
his resting spot was marked with a simple wooden marker, now long disappeared. But
Longboat's accomplishments are still with us today. It's good to see both the City of
Brantford and Canada Post honouring the memory of this remarkable man.
"Let Us Consider The Human Brain As
A Very Complex Photographic Plate"
1957 G.H. Estabrooks
www.angelfire.com/mn/mcap/bc.html
FOR K A R E N #01182
who died fighting 4/23/99
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aches-mc.org
807-622-5407
