Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Fred Thomas-A Complete Athlete
Every once
in a while, a friend will put a bug in my ear about a certain
athlete, or a team, or a significant sports event. Several years ago,
I wrote about “Jumpin'” Johnny Wilson, a basketball player from
Indiana. Wilson came from a small city in Indiana, and was generally
recognized as “Mr. Basketball” in the state.
Fred Thomas
was born in Windsor, Ontario, in 1923. He was a fifth generation
Canadian, whose ancestry could be traced to fugitive slaves in North
Carolina, and to Barbadian immigrants. He was an outstanding high
school athlete in Windsor, attending J. C. Patterson Collegiate
Institute. He attended Assumption College, now Windsor University,
and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1949.
While
attending high school in Windsor, he excelled in track and field
events, played football, and led his team to a provincial
championship by defeating Ottawa Glebe Collegiate in Toronto.
When he
finished high school, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force,
and earned his wings just before the end of the war. He then began
his studies at Assumption College. A gifted athlete, standing at 6'
3”, he also towered over most of the other competitors at that
time. In his freshman year, he led his team to a 49-45 victory over
the Harlem Globetrotters. At that time, the Globetrotters were
generally recognized as one of the best basketball teams in the
world.
Thomas used
his terrific speed to break up passing plays, and he was constantly a
thorn in the side of the Globetrotters.
In his
senior year, he led his team to the Ontraio Senior Men's Championship
when they defeated Toronto Central 90-56. Thomas had 47 points in the
victory. At that time, the Toronto Globe and Mail descibed him as the
“best Negro athlete in Canada”. In his four year college career,
he amassed 2 059 points, ranking him third amongst the NCAA scorers
in that era. Those days at Assumption were simply called the
“Thomistic Era”. A newspaper at that time reported that he
“played the game with the grace of a swan, and the agility of a
gazelle”.
Thomas
played baseball for the Negro League Detroit Senators in 1947, and
also for the Farnham Pirates in 1948 in the Quebec Provincial League.
In a July 4, 1948, double-header, he took the field for the
Wilkes-Barre Barons, a farm team of the |Cleveland Indians. His
appearance was the first of a black player in the Eastern League,
about a year after Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in the
major leagues.
He also
played basketball with a black barn-storming basketball team owned by
Abe Saperstein, who also owned the Globetrotters. He was invited to
their training camp in 1949, but was late in arriving because he had
to finsh the season with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian
Football League.
Following
his illustrious atletic career, he became a coach and physical
education teacher in East York at Valley Park High School. He died in
1981.
James Hurst
December 25,
2019.
# posted by James Hurst @ 3:34 PM 
