HIGH ACHIEVERS: Terry Garrow pushing for father Alex to be first First Nations athlete in Canada Basketball Hall of Fame

By Martin Cleary

Terry Garrow is on a mission, a serious and personal one.

The former St. Pius X High School student-athlete from the mid-1980s wants to see his father Alex inducted into the Canada Basketball Hall of Fame.

He believes the various pieces of his dad’s basketball puzzle, although not always overly impressive, form a strong enough package for serious consideration. If accepted, Garrow believes his father would make Canada Basketball Hall of Fame history as the original First Nations inductee.

Alex Garrow was born Jan. 3, 1927, in St. Regis, PQ, and lived his early years on the Mohawk territory of the Akwesasne Reserve, which is located along the St. Lawrence River. His family later moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where he emerged as a talented, multi-sport athlete and a high school all-star basketball player noted for his shooting, scoring and endless energy.

His skills and determination earned him a basketball scholarship to the University of Alabama for the 1959-60 academic year. But there would be no second year.

He signed with the then American Basketball League’s Washington franchise for the 1961-62 season, but a serious car accident, which left him in a coma for three days, ended his hopes of playing professional basketball at one level below the top NBA.

Garrow, however, continued his passion for the game, playing men’s senior basketball with the Tillsonburg Livingstons, the Yvon Coutu team of Montreal and various clubs in Ottawa for 10 to 15 years. He also coached youth boys’ teams in the Nepean Amateur Basketball Association for 10 years.

Well respected by Canadian basketball icons and named to the top 150 players in Canada by Curtis J. Phillips of FrozenHoops.com, Garrow invested his time and energy into basketball as a multi-level player and coach, despite some personal challenges.

He played his final game on Aug. 6, 1997, with his cross-border peers in Buffalo. On the way home to his residence in Ridgeway, ON, he died from a massive heart attack, while going across the Peace Bridge.

“My dad was a basketball junkie,” Terry Garrow, a high school teacher in the Halton District School Board said in a phone interview this week. “On the day he died, Aug. 6, 1997, he played a game in Buffalo, New York. He loved shooting hoops in the driveway or playing or a shooting game call HORSE.”

As Terry continues to research his father’s basketball career, he learns more about himself as he builds a hall-of-fame case for his dad.

“My dad should be the first,” Terry said about seeing his father become what he believes would be the first First Nations’ player inducted in the Canada Basketball Hall of Fame.

“If anyone goes in, he has to be the first. If not for my father, a lot of players would not be in the Indigenous Games or get a start in basketball. That wouldn’t happen without my dad’s influence.”

The North American Indigenous Games, which started in 1990 in Edmonton, are a large multi-sport and cultural celebration for continental Indigenous athletes. Terry said his father played a role in creating those Games along with many others, including Willie Littlechild and John Fletcher.

While Alex’s basketball statistics are impressive at some level, they were missing in some key areas for hall-of-fame recognition.

“My father’s numbers don’t always tell the truth,” Terry explained, citing what his father achieved in the 1950s and 1960s as a First Nation athlete was outstanding in his community.

When he played basketball in Grades 11 and 12 in 1955 and 1956 respectively at Bishop Fallon High School in Buffalo, he was a rare back-to-back selection to the All-Catholic team by both the Buffalo Evening News and the Courier Express newspapers.

In his Grade 12 season, he finished fourth among Bishop Burke Division scoring leaders, averaging 20.7 points a game and led his Fallon team in rebounds. While Fallon posted a 7-5 regular-season record, Alex’s play was key to his school winning its first playoff championship for the Manhattan Cup.

Courier Express sportswriter Bill Coughlin Jr. described Alex’s final high school season this way: “His clutch scoring, on uncanny jumps and long corner sets, was heralded through the division.”

Buffalo Evening News sportswriter Dick Stedler labelled Alex “Fallon’s brilliant forward” and added he was “the only player to make the all-star team two years in a row.”

The University of Alabama scouting staff first noticed Alex in his Grade 11 season, when they were at the school to watch another player. According to Sports Reference College Basketball, Alex joined the Crimson Tide for the 1960-61 season and, despite some quality moments as a freshman, he managed only 1.2 points and 1.4 rebounds a game under head coach Eugene Lambert.

Lambert left Alabama the following season to coach in Montana. No family member knows the story behind why Alex didn’t return to Alabama for his second year and play under new head coach Hayden Riley. Terry said his father didn’t always talk a lot about parts of his life.

Unlike today when Canada selects its Olympic teams from a pool of top players in the NBA, the Summer Games team of the 1960s came from team officials watching the provincial and national men’s senior basketball championships.

Alex thought he had a good chance to become an Olympian for the 1960 Summer Games. But Canada didn’t qualify for the 1960 Rome Olympics and Alex was named an alternate for the 1964 Games in Tokyo.

Terry didn’t know why his father wasn’t elevated to Canada’s top team back then. He was concerned it may have had to do something with systemic racism and his struggles with alcohol.

“My indication is there was a certain bias back then by who selected the team,” added Terry, who helped a Canadian team with two Ottawa players called the Stooges win the FIBA World Cup men’s masters 60-plus championship this summer.

Read More: Ottawa’s Chris Biegler, Terry Garrow celebrate men’s age 60-64 basketball world championship

Alex also flirted with professional basketball in 1961-62. He signed with the Washington franchise of the then American Basketball League, but saw his career end before it started, when he broke his back in a playground accident.

But Alex certainly was one of the top men’s senior players in Canada. At the 1960-61 nationals, he was a guard for the Tillsonburg Livingstons and took them to the national final.

The Lethbridge Broders swept the best-of-three final, despite the scoring of Alex, who finished with 56 points. In the Eastern Canada semifinals and final, he scored 79 points in four games for Tillsonburg.

Alex, who played senior men’s basketball for the Yves Coutu team in Montreal and was the Quebec league MVP in 1963, also was a prominent player on the Ottawa men’s senior basketball scene for about 10 years.

As a coach, he shared his knowledge of the game with youth teams in the Nepean Amateur Basketball Association for a decade and helped to develop many key university-bound players like Chris Jonsson, Ken Tucker and his son Terry.

At the 1991 House-Laughton men’s basketball tournament at Carleton University, organizers paid tribute to Alex and recognized him for the development of basketball players in Ottawa.

Shortly after he died, Garrow was honoured with the Can-Am tournament sportsmanship award. Nicknamed the Chief, Buffalo attorney and best friend Terry Naples called Alex “a coach on the floor.”

Organizers of the Can-Am tournament said Alex was perfectly qualified for the sportsmanship award and honoured him posthumously, saying:

“His balance of even temperament and competitive zeal was textbook. Mr. Naples said he never heard Alex berate an official or teammate in over 40 years of competition. He just did what needed to be done for the team.”