DON DURNO (1948-49, 51)

Don Durno played in the first CFL game he ever saw. He must have liked it, because he's been involved in football almost constantly ever since.

That first game came with the Montreal Bulldogs during the war in 1941. An aspiring hockey player who had played in Europe just before the war ("I was in Germany when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia"), Durno was just trying to stay in shape during the off-season when he attended the Bulldogs training camp.

"It was just a fluke, and one thing led to another," said Durno, who played quite well in that first game against Ottawa, and the rest is history.

In 1942, Durno won the Grey Cup for the Toronto chapter of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), who won 8-5 over their Winnipeg Air Force counterparts. During the war, Durno spent three-and-a-half years with the Air Force as a physical training instructor, and moved out west to play for Winnipeg in 1943, where he earned western conference all-star accolades at the defensive end position.

In 1946, Durno came back east and played for the Toronto Indians of the Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU), where he was also a part-owner. A year later, the nomadic Durno became one of the first Canadians to play in the All-America Conference, when he signed with the Cleveland Browns and was subsequently traded to the Chicago Rockets. where he played six games before coming back to Montreal.

In 1948, Durno finally joined the Argonauts, and he remembered the team as being a little too conservative and behind the times, and it hurt them on the field.

"Everybody else had black players, but we didn't have any," said Durno, who also played senior hockey during his Argo years. "There were about six times when I played football at Varsity Stadium in the afternoon and then played hockey at Varsity Arena at night."

While Durno played three total seasons with the Argos, he had a lot of bad timing. He joined the team after their last of three straight titles in 1947, then went to Edmonton in 1950 when the Argos won their next championship. He returned to Toronto in 1951, but then moved on to Hamilton in 1952, a year in which the Double Blue won their last title for 31 years.

After retiring, Durno stayed with football as the president of the Ontario Junior Football League from 1960-76, and was also the Argo alumni president for 27 years, from 1965-92.

Away from football, Durno had many business and charity ventures, the first of which was opening Towne Billiards in 1948, which "when it was opened, it was the most modern one in North America". Durno was mainly involved in the building business, though, including building the Glen Cedars Golf Club in Markham, which he ran from 1964-85. He also organized more than 50 charity golf tournaments, and helped raise over $4 million for the Charlie Conacher Cancer Committee.

Today, Durno is retired and lives with his wife Margaret. They have three kids (Doug, Bob and Donna) and six grandkids.


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