Two-time Olympian a St. Catharines hall of famer
Two-time Olympian Clayton Brown will be one of five local residents inducted next Wednesday into the St. Catharines Sports Hall of Fame.
“It’s a big deal and I have to thank two of the fellows (Richard Crooker and Joel Finley) from the crew (Canadian eight at 1968 Olympics) who suggested I should try and get into the sports hall of fame. I said I didn’t know but they said they would do a lot of work for me and research it,” the 83-year-old lifelong St. Catharines resident said.
A football star at St. Catharines Collegiate where he helped the school win several championships— he won the Canada Dry Award as one of Ontario’s outstanding schoolboy football linemen in 1960— Brown began rowing in 1957 at Collegiate.
“I was asked by some of the rowers who were also on the football team. They asked me ‘What do you do. Do you just play football? Why don’t you come out and get in shape and try rowing?’ So that’s what I did it.”
Three years later, he was representing Canada at the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics.
“I guess a bit of it was luck. I just got there at the right time.”
Crewmates Chris Leach and Franklin Zielski also rowed at Collegiate and Bob Adams was at Grantham High School at the time. Brown was 19 when he became a first-time Olympian and the 1959 senior athlete of the year at Collegiate was the oldest member of the crew.
He remembers doing a lot of exercise leading up to the 1960 Olympic trials in St. Catharines, including the RCAF 5BX exercise program, which consisted of five exercises performed within 11 minutes.
“Our coach was Alex Wilson who was a police constable at the time and he managed to get us use of the St. Catharines fire hall in Western Hill,” Brown said. “That’s where we worked out and we would run up Pelham Road and down into the valley.”
He laughingly recalls the week leading to the Olympic trials in St. Catharines.
“All four of us stayed in Alex Wilson’s house and he had three children. We focused on rowing and he kept track of us.”
Brown’s wife Lynn remembers Wilson driving by her house to make sure Brown wasn’t there instead of training or resting.
The training and Wilson’s diligence paid off as the four qualified for the Rome Games.
“For me and probably the three others as well, the biggest thrill was flying on a huge plane for the first time.”
The crew flew from St Catharine to Montreal and one of the breweries looked after their accommodations and food overnight before the team headed to Rome.
“We had uniforms and all that and it was great. The one thing that was surprising was we had wool blue blazers in Rome and that was for the opening ceremonies.”
They sat in the stands and didn’t march with other athletes because they competition started the next day.
The boat ended up finishing fifth in heat and third in repechage.
“I expected more but the other people didn’t think that. We were young and had no experience rowing at that level.”
Brown didn’t try out for the Olympics in 1964 because he was playing offensive lineman and punting for the University of Guelph football team. At Guelph, he was inducted into the 1960s Team of the Decade.
“I was not training for rowing because those years I was trying to gain weight because I only weighed 190 pounds. I ended up getting up to 220.”
In the summers, before he would start focusing on football, he would train and row with the St. Catharines Rowing Club. He would do a lot of travelling with the club, mostly to the United States and won three U.S. National Rowing Championships in an eight. He also won several Canadian Henley golds in fours and eights.
He graduated from Guelph in April of 1968 and when he returned home, he started training for rowing once or twice a day. He was asked by a couple of members of an eight to come out and train and once again he was on the path to the Olympics.
The eight, made up of Neil Campbell, John Ross, Brown, Crooker, Daryl Sturdy, Richard Symsyk, John McIntyre, Daryl MacDonald and cox Finley, ended up winning the Olympics trials in St. Catharines over three others boats, including the University of British Columbia and the Leander Boat Club.
“The 1968 race at the trials was the first time my parents, (Art and Lillian Brown) were at the grandstand,” Brown said. “My dad wasn’t too impressed with all the time I was spending at sports and, of course, my mother just sort went along with him. That was the only time they saw me row and they never did see me play football.”
The rowing team headed to Mexico six weeks before the Games started to get used to the climate.
“It was hot there and at the same time there was some kind of rebellion going on in Mexico City. We were well-guarded in the Olympic Village and we weren’t allowed to go out because of the possibility of meeting people that didn’t appreciate the Olympics. The meals were excellent and the training facilities were great.”
The eight ended up finishing fourth in the semifinals, fourth in the repechage and ended up ninth overall following the B Final.
“That was very, very disappointing and the crew was very upset. We would have been in the final if a problem hadn’t arisen. We were favoured to be in the final and we weren’t,” he said.
Again he sat in stands for opening ceremonies and left before the closing ceremonies.
When he returned to St. Catharines, he taught high school math, science and physical education at Kernahan Park and St. Catharines Collegiate.
Brown ended up giving back to the sport by coaching rowing at West Park, Ridley College and St. Catharines Collegiate. He also started up a football program at Kernahan Park and coached football at Collegiate.
Also being inducted are bowler Don Betts, hockey player Mike Iggulden, basketball builder Bob Miller and rower Jane Tregunno-Stamp. The ceremony will be held Wednesday, Nov. 15 at the Meridian Centre starting at 5:30 p.m.
