While the Argos’ ship has been going down, their popularity has been soaring. After years of near-comic inadequacy, the Toronto Argonauts football team has built a measure of success on the field this season – only to watch as the finances of owner Sherwood Schwarz crumble around them, reported the National Post July 31. Commenting on the Argos’ popularity, Frank Cosentino, a sports historian and professor emeritus at York University, said, “The CFL in the fall had the sports pages all to itself. In any newspaper where a CFL team was, certainly, you had stories being written about personnel. The fans identified with the players – they knew who they were.” Schwarz, a New York businessman, has all but abandoned the Argos, and forced the Canadian Football League to assume control on Tuesday.
John Zubyck’s high times
York pole vaulter John Zubyck has leaped over the competition once again, reports the North York Mirror July 30. Zubyck, who was York University’s male athlete of the year this season, captured the men’s pole vault crown at the recent Canadian track and field championships in Victoria, BC. He failed, however, to make the Athletics Canada standard of 5.20 metres which would have qualified him for the World Student Games in Korea in late August. Zubyck’s best jump in Victoria was an even 5.00 metres. Zubyck now ranks first in the country in pole vault at the inter-university level.
- CBC Radio (CBCK-FM, Kingston) interviewed Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Alan Young on July 29 about how he thinks the federal government lawyer would push for clarifying decisions by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The standing law had been declared invalid because it did not provide a way for Health Canada medicinal users to get a legal supply of marijuana.
- CBC Radio’s national show “The Current” talked with York English Professor Terry Goldie about the depiction of the gays in the media. Recently, TV has enjoyed success with a number of gay-themed shows that raise the question of just how much the mainstream has changed.
- Rock historian and enthnomusicologist Professor Rob Bowman was interviewed by CBC Radio’s national show “As It Happens” about the link between the Rolling Stones and Toronto.