The life of Bruce Kidd, Canadian icon

The cover of former Canadian Olympian Bruce Kidd’s new book features a quote from Saturday Night Live creator (and fellow Canadian) Lorne Michaels: “every Canadian parent in the 1960s expected their children to live up to the image of Bruce Kidd”. That is indeed how famous and accomplished Bruce Kidd was during his heyday. In A Runner’s Journey, an autobiography of his athletic and personal life, Kidd, a former Canadian world junior record holder who was twice named Canada’s male athlete of the year, dissects how his sudden rise to fame came about.

Kidd begins the story with his earliest clear memory, from the spring of 1947. He attended the mass vaccination clinic run by the New York City Department of Health to curb the spread of smallpox, a fitting recollection for these COVID times. Kidd, age four, was living in New York City with his parents, where his dad was a PhD student at Columbia University.

Kidd’s family returned to Canada later that fall and settled in East York, a suburb of Toronto, where sports became the primary source of activity for him and his four siblings, (at least the boys). Kidd played as many sports as possible; however, baseball was his favourite and the one at which he excelled. It was not until Bruce was 15 years old that he started running. In the chapter, “I Become a Runner”, he shares a rather amusing story that his track and field career began because of a dare with a classmate late in the summer of 1957.

His rise to stardom happened fast. Just four short years after the dare race, Kidd was the recipient of the Lou Marsh Award, given to the best professional or amateur athlete in Canada each year, voted on by sports journalists. That same year, Kidd also won his first of two consecutive Lionel Conacher Awards (Canadian Press Award), as Canada’s top male athlete of the year.

Kidd competed at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics in the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres events, but a combination of injuries and feverish expectations from the Canadian public and media, ‘gold medal or bust’, meant that he failed to get a medal. Kidd left Tokyo disconsolate and depressed. Despite the lack of Olympic success, Kidd continued to be one of the most famous people in Canada during the 60s. To give context to Kidd’s athletic prowess, he held the Canadian junior record at 5000 metres for 54 years, until current Canadian Olympian Justyn Knight broke it in 2016.

The chapter “Gap Year”, provides another example of Kidd’s incredible fame. Kidd mentions that a car dealership offered him a Land Rover for his planned drive with university friends to go from London, England to India in 1965 as part of a teaching opportunity in Northern India. Kidd was 22 at the time and had just graduated from the University of Toronto.

In another memorable section of the book, Kidd talks about choosing the University of Toronto over Harvard for his post-secondary education. He describes an encounter between him and Tom Courtney, the American Harvard recruiter and a double Olympic gold medallist in track and field. Courtney visited Kidd at his house in Toronto with a last-minute pitch in the hope that Bruce would switch to attending Harvard.

“With John F. Kennedy in the White House, and Harvard grads in every major agency and corporation, your Harvard degree will take you anywhere in the world. You will be one of the new Romans. Why would you want to stay in this little backwater [Canada], when you could have all of that?”. For Kidd, a staunch patriot, Courtney’s insult solidified the decision to stay in Canada for university and help grow track and field in the country.

Another stand-out piece of writing occurs in chapter five, “Commonwealth Champion”, when Kidd reminisces about his first beer-drinking experience. He recalls being at the Perth, Australia home of one of his father’s former colleagues from the University of Western Australia for the 1962 Commonwealth Games. Kidd’s dad’s friends offer him beer (Swan Lager), and Kidd describes how he almost declined until he saw their nine-year old taking a lager for himself. From that moment on, Kidd and fellow Canadian track star Harry Jerome began helping themselves to beer from the fridge in the Games officials’ bungalow.

The book is replete with personal anecdotes and memories, all written in a very entertaining, unpretentious and engaging style. Kidd was a feminist before most people knew what the concept meant. The reader learns about Kidd’s lifelong commitment to social justice, gender equality in sport and his steadfast support of human rights. For example, when he was Director of the School of Physical Education at U of T in the 1990s, Kidd ensured that the new athletic centre had women’s only hours in the swimming pool and weight room, and pay equity for staff. Kidd made it his mission to ensure that women felt safe using the athletic facilities on campus.

In A Runner’s Journey, Kidd takes the reader inside the life of one of Canada’s greatest and most complex athletes. Whether it is his discussion of his unconventional athletic background (his late start in track and field, and his affinity for social activism from a young age), or analyzing his sudden skyrocketing to fame, he offers a compelling memoir from the opening page. At 346 pages, it is not the shortest of autobiographies, but then again, with someone as accomplished as Bruce Kidd, 346 pages is likely too short. I wanted to learn more about this remarkable and iconic Canadian hero.

A Runner’s Journey is available from the University of Toronto Press and bookstores across Canada.

Title: A Runner’s Journey

Author: Bruce Kidd

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Publication date: 14/09/2021

Total pages: 347