ANGUS GRANT
Builder
Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame
Inducted: July 11, 2019
Angus Grant (pictured second from the left)
Angus Grant was brought up in William’s Point. His family had a strong belief in the Scottish culture and traditions of Antigonish County. Angus’ early years would have been heavily influenced by his teachers at Morrison School and the parish priests at St. Ninian’s.
After graduation from St.F.X, Angus began his teaching career in the small community schools of Antigonish County. He took great pride in his students and believed that his role as a teacher was to develop the whole person – their intellectual as well as physical abilities.
Sports played a large part in Angus’ life as he spent his career providing opportunities for his students to grow as strong distance runners and superb softball players.
For Angus, the Highland Games was the goal for many of his students to aspire to. The games were the prize for students to achieve if they prepared well for the events. The school, parish and family created an environment for their children to participate and succeed at the Highland Games.
Angus’ major achievement was as Meet Director of the 1979 Highland Games. That year, it was designated as the first International Gathering of the Clans to be held outside of Scotland. It was the largest track and field event to take place in eastern Canada, with over 700 athletes, and many of the best track and field athletes from eastern Canada and Scotland attended. Participants included Nat Muir, Maggie Woods and Adam Schumaker, some of the premier international athletes of their time.
Angus made it his goal to re-build the tradition of a complete compliment of ancient Scottish Heavy Events at the Games that year. For the first time, the 26 lb stone throw, the 56 lb stone throw, the 28 lb throw, the 22 lb hammer throw, a 16 lb hammer throw, a 56 lb weight throw for height and the caber toss event were introduced in a new format. Participation had dwindled in previous years, but Angus took the time to invite the top amateur and professional Scottish Heavy Event competitors to attend. Dave Herrington, referred to as “King of the Heavies”, by the Chronicle Herald, as reflection of his immense athletic skill in the traditional events, was crowned Overall Champion. Scottish Amateur Champions, Bob Davidson and Walter Weir, found themselves in 2nd and 3rd place, behind Herrington.
Another item of note, was a change to the Caber Toss scoring system. Under Angus’ leadership, the Antigonish Highland Games made the move to adopt the traditional Scottish scoring system, which was not being used in Canada at that time. This scoring system became the new format that would eventually be adopted throughout Canada in Scottish heavy event competition. And helped to propel the Antigonish Highland Games as one of the premier games for heavy event competitors to attend.
Angus is to be credited as the person who moved the Scottish Heavy Events into a new era of competition. Angus arranged a number of clinics on the various events to be introduced in the inaugural year. Dave Anderson, World Caber Toss Champion, was invited to host a clinic for local youth and heavy event participants. A beneficiary of these clinics was local athlete, Marty Gilfoy, who went on to mentor well known heavy event competitors Fr. Douglas MacDonald and Greg Hadley.
For his dedication to training young athletes for track and field competitions and for being instrumental in introducing a complete complement of Ancient Scottish Heavy Events to the Antigonish Highland Games, Angus Grant is inducted into the Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame.