LIONEL CONACHER (1921-22)

In today's sporting culture, athletes like Deion Sanders, Bo Jackson, Danny Ainge and Michael Jordan, who have tried their hands at two or more different professional sports, are given a type of elevated status above their single-sport peers.

But if these two-sport wonders are seen as heroes, then Lionel Conacher would have been considered a god-like figure.

In his prime after the first world war, Conacher excelled at six - that's right, six! - different sports: football, hockey, baseball, lacrosse, boxing and wrestling.

"If you listed Conacher's feats and sent the story to Hollywood, they'd turn them down as too fantastic," once wrote the Toronto Star's Red Burnett.

For his exploits, Conacher was named Canada's athlete of the first half-century, and it's a good bet he will take the title as the best athlete in the entire century once the millenium hits in four years time. The length of time since his exploits, which occurred in the 1920's and 1930's before the advent of mass media, may hurt his chances, but recent features on him in The Toronto Star and on TSN's Inside Sports have tried to keep his memory alive.

"He was the international symbol of greatness in athletics," wrote the Star's Milt Dunnell, included in the feature on Conacher written by Daniel Nearing that ran on May 26, 1994.

Just how good was the Toronto-born Conacher?

Well, he spent two seasons with the Argos in 1921 and '22, and came to be known as "the Big Train" because of his ability to run over opponents. In the 1921 Grey Cup, a game won by the Argos 23-0 over Edmonton, Conacher led the team with two touchdowns, two singles and even had a rare drop-kick field goal. In 1922, the Argos also had a strong team, but lost to Queen's University in the Eastern final 12-11.

But Conacher's football career was short-lived, as he moved to the U.S. in 1923 to play hockey, where he was an NHL all-star and considered "Canada's wonder athlete". They called him this because he had played Triple-A baseball and received major league contract offers, was acknowledged as the best lacrosse player in the game at the time, was the Ontario champion in his wrestling category and was the light-heavyweight boxing champion of Canada. He often played more than one sport on any given day, travelling from one venue directly to another.

This demanding schedule eventually took its toll, and Conacher retired from the athletic environment in his mid-'30's. However, his post-athletic career was just as interesting, as he was elected to the Ontario Legislature in 1937 and the House of Commons in 1949. Tragically, but fitting in a way, Conacher died of a heart attack during a charity softball game on Parliament Hill in 1954.

Posthumously, Conacher was inducted into the Canadian Football League Hall-of-Fame in 1963.


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