Remembering Don Arnold

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Former University of Waterloo Recreation professor Don Arnold passed away on June 27 in North Vancouver, British Columbia.

In 1954 Arnold began his undergraduate degree at University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver where he was invited to try out for the UBC-VRC rowing team in 1955. With Arnold in the stroke seat, his crew of four was selected for the 1956 Canadian Olympic trials, which they won by several boat lengths and set a world record. Later that year they represented Canada at the Olympic games in Melbourne, claiming the first ever Olympic gold medal for Canada in rowing. In 1960, he stroked the UBC-VCR Eight crew to Olympic silver in Rome – Canada’s only medal of the Games.

After the 1960 Olympics, Arnold retired from rowing to focus on family and his education, completing his bachelor’s degree at UBC in 1962, a Master of Science in 1964 at San Francisco UCLA, and his doctorate in Recreation and Park Administration at Indiana University in 1970. He accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo in 1970 in the fledgling department of recreation and leisure studies. He and his family returned to Vancouver in 1976 where he took a teaching position at UBC, and later co-founded and directed Rowing BC.

Arnold’s accomplishments were also featured in a legacy article in The Globe and Mail.