HIGH ACHIEVERS: Stuart McGregor, Pat Reid inducted into Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame

By Martin Cleary

Unique.

If one word could describe the athletic career of Ottawa runner Stuart McGregor, that would be the one that best hits the nail on the head.

Athletics Ontario, the provincial sport-governing body for track and field, thought so, too, and inducted him into its hall of fame late last month in Toronto.

“It was definitely very special. It was amazing to see all the incredible contributors. I felt very blessed to be part of this group,” McGregor said in a phone interview this week.

The list of honoured hall of fame individuals also included coach Pat Reid, who formerly lived in Ottawa.

When McGregor was a young boy, sports was a big part of his family environment with supportive parents and the motivation of his three brothers, who all treated each other like best friends. He was into as many sports as time allowed, battling with and learning from his siblings.

But when he was in Grade 5, his sports world went a little sideways and major adjustments were required. McGregor was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition, which has slowly and continually stripped him of his peripheral vision and left him with tunnel vision, which was like seeing the world through a straw.

He had to abandon many of his beloved sports, like hockey, baseball and basketball. While contact and team sports were out of the question, he was able to focus on another passion, running, which also posed some interesting moments.

McGregor was able to handle the challenges of the runners in front of and around him and deal with the fear of falling because of what he had learned from playing sports with his brothers.

Those lessons allowed McGregor to take a bold step and pit his racing talents against the top runners in local, provincial and national high school, junior and senior track meets. In many cases, he won medals.

The confidence he gained from this adventure also allowed him to succeed as a visually-impaired runner, capturing medals at each of his three Paralympic Summer Games, being a gold medallist at a world para athletics championship and earning more than 20 international medals.

“I never identified myself as blind, but as an athlete,” McGregor said. “I overcame that and my focus was the finish line, that was my feat.”

As a student-athlete at Hillcrest and Brookfield high schools, he qualified for five OFSAA provincial track and field championships and was the senior boys’ 800-metre bronze medallist in 1998. He picked up a fistful of fourth-place results in his other races.

He earned medals representing the Ottawa Lions Track and Field Club at the Canadian junior and Royal Canadian Legion youth championships as well as at the university level with Western and Windsor.

McGregor also tested his running skills against the best para athletes in the world and proved he was one of the best.

His Paralympic Games record is remarkable in the T13 class for athletes with less than 10-per-cent vision.

McGregor, who was a teacher at the Ottawa Christian School for 17 years before joining Accessibility Standards Canada as a research policy analyst in 2021, also won three medals at three world para championships, including one gold in the 800 metres.

At age 17, he was the men’s T12 1,500-metre silver medallist at the 1996 Atlanta Paralympics and captured bronze medals in the T13 800 metres at both the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Paralympics.

“Being in a family with three brothers, I played sports my whole life,” reflected McGregor, who still owns the Canadian para T13 men’s records for 400 metres (51.02 seconds, 2004) and 800 metres (1:53.63, 2005). “I played every sport growing up until my visibility changed. I was in a sports environment and I didn’t want anything to stop me.

“Hockey, baseball and basketball became impossible because I (couldn’t) rely on my peripheral vision. But with running, most of the training you can do in a lane or with one or two runners ahead of you. False starts were difficult, but I liked the 400 metres because you only stayed in one lane. I had my share of falls and crashes more than others.

“I learned to be tough. If something would go wrong, I would pick myself up. Track was hard for me. It was tough. But I was tough mentally to do all the hard work and adapt to the training. (Lions’) coach Ray (Elrick) treated me like the others.”

On a rainy fall day in 2005, McGregor and best-friend/training-partner Jason Dunkerley were struck by a vehicle while crossing a road. McGregor shattered a leg and needed five reconstructive surgeries and countless physiotherapy sessions. He also had nerve and tendon damage, which left him with a limp, affected his running stride and ended his international racing career.

But 13 years later, his determination to be a runner again took him to the start line of the 2018 Ottawa Marathon. He finished in three hours, three minutes and 44 seconds, which qualified him for the following year’s Boston Marathon. At his first Boston Marathon in 2019, he won the men’s visually-impaired division in 3:12:02. Later that year, he broke three hours at the Philadelphia Marathon with a run of 2:59:02.

Today, McGregor is focused on coaching his daughter Ellie, who won a silver medal at the 2024 OFSAA track and field championships in the girls’ novice 400 metres in 58.05 seconds.

“I’m always learning about coaching from great coaches,” McGregor added.

Former Ottawa resident Pat Reid also was inducted into the Athletics Ontario Hall of Fame for his dedication and multiple contributions to coaching, serving on committees and organizing meets.

Reid created and was meet director for the Ottawa Citizen Indoor Games, which later became the Winternationals.

One of the few Canadians to be a certified Level 5 athletics coach, he recently served in that role for Ontario in the discipline of high jumping at the 2022 Canada Summer Games. He also was on the Brock University Badgers’ coaching staff in 2023-24.

He has attended multiple Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan-Am Games, world championships and Canada Summer Games.

Reid is recognized as a performance coach and a coaching evaluator for Athletics Ontario and Athletics Canada. For more than 50 years, he served many roles in the Canadian sports system, including managing the Best-Ever ’88 program to assist the country’s top athletes preparing for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.