England-born Ed Dawson took up basketball in the 1920s and won his first Canadian Championship in 1928 with the Windsor-Walkerville Alumni. Shortly thereafter he entered Assumption University (then Assumption College) in Windsor and captained their basketball team before graduating and returning to the Windsor Alumni in 1932. He was a member of their team when they lost the national championship to the Victoria Blue Ribbons in 1933, but had his revenge in 1936 as a member of the Windsor V-8s, who won the title and the right to represent Canada at the inaugural Olympic basketball tournament at that year’s Summer Games. Dawson played in only one match, Canada’s 27-9 defeat of Switzerland in the third round, but was awarded a silver medal after his nation lost to the United States 19-8 in the final. He retired from active competition after the Olympics and resumed the teaching career that he had begun at the J. C. Patterson Collegiate Institute in 1932. He also served as a basketball, football, and track coach at the institution and led the Windsor Alumni to the finals of the Canadian basketball championships in 1937, where they lost to the University of British Columbia. He remained at Patterson until his death in 1968, the first of his silver medal-winning team to die. Among others, he has been inducted into the Canadian Basketball, Windsor-Essex County, and University of Windsor Sports Alumni Halls of Fame, the latter as a graduate of Assumption College.
Canada