Malcolm Reid had heard the story many, many basketball moons ago.Last week, the head coach of the Vernon Panthers’ senior boys basketball team recounted it to me, and just like the day he first heard it from a man named Dick Abbott, it almost sounded like a fable.Earlier this month, Abbott — the father-in-law of […]
University Men’s Basketball
A Sunday Read: In 1958, UBC hosted the greatest group of NBA talent in B.C. history! Here’s how 15 future Hall of Famers hit the parquet at War Memorial Gym!
VANCOUVER — Cloudy, sunny periods, scattered showers, and a chance of … a lifetime.Excuse my indulgences today as I supplement the weather forecast of a certain spring day here almost 63 years ago because through the gift of hindsight, it all seems especially apropos.April 21, 1958.That’s the day on which perhaps the most amazing collection […]
VL Podcast 12.10.20: Basketball B.C. prez Stu Graham on the culture of hoops in his early-1970s North Delta Huskies neighbourhood and beyond!
The Varsity Letters time machine spins the knobs and dials and heads back to the year 1971 to celebrate (a wee bit early) a very special 50th anniversary BC high school moment! Our guest? Basketball B.C. president Stu Graham has worn so many hats, and he brings the entire rack to the fore as he […]
A Sunday Read: Why Dec. 1, 1990 – the day the UNLV Rebels came to town – was the day Vancouver came of age as a basketball city!
VANCOUVER — I can still remember the day that the late, great Jim Taylor, the newspaper sports columnist of my youth and later a co-worker at The Province newspaper, invited me over to his Vancouver home so that I might conduct an interview for a feature story I wanted to write on him for my […]
“Ty has one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever coached!” High praise as Walnut Grove’s Rowell drops 32 points in Cal Baptist’s OT loss to USC Trojans
Longtime followers of the B.C. high school basketball scene will remember how Ty Rowell had a penchant for sinking baskets that could take your breath away.On Wednesday, however, as the NCAA Div. 1 college hoops season continued its run of season-opening games, Rowell turned the trick on his biggest stage yet.Almost a full year after […]
Climbing Jacob’s Ladder! VC Fighting Irish big man Jacob Holt stokes Santa Clara’s gilded B.C. tradition! Broncos get another one of our very best!
VANCOUVER — Jacob Holt admits he was originally leaning towards playing his university basketball in Canada.One day over this past summer, however, Vancouver College’s then-rising 6-foot-9 senior forward decided to test the waters with a highlight tape he’d put together all by himself.“I probably got 40 calls… it was surreal,” the affable Holt recounted Wednesday. […]
Simon Fraser men’s basketball: An ‘attitude of gratitude’ remains their daily motto as 2020-21 season hangs by a thread
BURNABY — Simon Fraser basketball still has about two weeks to wait before it learns whether or not it will be able to beat the odds and have some semblance of a conference basketball schedule.That said, the odds seem longer than a full-court Hail, Mary prayer to beat the buzzer at the team’s West Gym […]
A Sunday Read: How the storytellers of UBC men’s basketball wrote their own history and strengthened bonds in a time of disconnect!
VANCOUVER — In these most disconnected and fractured of times, when our most basic instinct of reaching out to others in an act of the heart is so often compromised by the frustration of new realities, here is a story about finding connection.“Early in COVID, I would be out on my walks… I was doing […]
UFV’s Toor de Force! With his deep cache of skills rising to the fore, Cascades’ guard Vick Toor is an anchor in these uncertain times
ABBOTSFORD — His game has always been built around such a diverse package of skills that perhaps it’s taken all of us these past three seasons to appreciate the true depth of his talents.Yet if the practice sessions which have just now begun wind up leading to some semblance of a men’s basketball season in […]
Simon Fraser student-athletes vote 97 per cent in favour of change, Clan moniker could be replaced by September
BURNABY — It’s hard to remember a span of time over the entire 55-year history of Simon Fraser athletics as emotionally charged as these past three days.