Terry Fox

Terrance Stanley Fox (July 28, 1958 - June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete and activist. He is best known for The Marathon of Hope. This was a run across Canada (with the help of an artificial leg). It started on April 12, 1980 in St. John's, Newfoundland. He did the run to get people to donate money to cancer research. He lost one of his legs because of bone cancer when he was 18. He wanted to run until he got to Vancouver Island. To do this, he planned to run across the country. The goal of the run was to raise 1 million Canadian dollars for cancer research. It was later to raise one dollar for every person in Canada.
Fox moved to Port Coquitlam, British Columbia in 1968. He played basketball and ran for his high school. After he had to get his leg removed, he kept running with a fake leg. Fox also played wheelchair basketball after this happened.
Many people helped him during his run. He ran about the distance of a marathon every day. On August 31, 1980, near the town of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Fox's cancer spread to his lungs. He had to stop running. Fox died on , in New Westminster, British Columbia. He died a month before his 23rd birthday.
In Canada, people think he is a hero. Every year, there is the Terry Fox Run. It is a run that gives money to cancer research. As of September 2022, the run has given over 850 million Canadian dollars to cancer research.
Fox was made a Companion in the Order of Canada before he died. He is the youngest person to be a Companion. There is a statue of him in Ottawa (Canada's capital city), near Parliament Hill. Many schools are named after him, such as the high school he was a student at. He has been put on the Canadian $1 coin.
Early life and cancer
Terry Fox was born on July 28, 1958, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His father worked for the Canadian National Railway. Fox had three siblings: an older brother named Fred, a younger brother named Darrell, and a younger sister named Judith. In 1966, they moved to Surrey, British Columbia. In 1968, they moved again to Port Coquitlam. The family stayed in Port Coquitlam.
Fox did not like losing. He would keep doing something until he won. Fox wanted to join his school's basketball team, but had trouble because he was short. His coach told him to do cross-country running. Fox started running, and practiced playing basketball. He got better at basketball, and won an award for it when he was in high school. Fox went to Simon Fraser University after high school. He studied how the human body moves, because he wanted to teach physical education. Fox was on a basketball team for the university.
On November 12, 1976, Fox was driving to Port Coquitlam when he crashed his car into a truck. He hurt his knee in the crash, but did not do anything about it until he stopped playing basketball in March. His knee started hurting more, so he went to a hospital. The doctors told him he had bone cancer in his knee. Fox thought that he got cancer because he hurt his knee in the crash. His doctors told him this was not true. He had to have his leg cut off. He also needed chemotherapy. Fox got a metal leg so he could still walk. He was able to walk three weeks after his leg was removed, and had to do chemotherapy for sixteen months.
In 1977, Rick Hansen asked Fox to join his wheelchair basketball team. Less than two months after learning how to play the sport, Fox played at the national championship for it. He won three national titles playing wheelchair basketball.
Marathon of Hope
The day before he got cancer surgery, Fox read about a man named Dick Traum. Dick Traum was the first amputee to finish the New York City Marathon. The story inspired Fox, and he practiced running for fourteen months. He told his family he wanted to run a marathon, but he wanted to run much longer. Fox was mad because cancer research did not get very much money. He wanted to run across Canada to get people to give money to cancer research. The only person he told this to was his friend, Douglas Alward.
Fox had to run in a special way because of his leg. He had to do small jumps on his real leg for each step so his fake leg worked. Practicing running was painful because Fox had to run this way. He noticed that after 20 minutes of running, he got used to the pain and the running would hurt less.
On September 2, 1979, Fox ran in a 17-mile (27 km) road race in Prince George, British Columbia. He was the last one to finish the race. Many people cheered for him when he finished. After the race, he told his family he wanted to run across Canada. His mother told him not to, and he got mad. She later supported Fox's run. Fox wanted to get $1 million for cancer research. Later, he wanted to get $10 million, and then a dollar for every person who lived in Canada (24 million people).
Before the run
In October 1979, Fox wrote a letter to the Canadian Cancer Society. He told them about what he wanted to do. He asked them to give him money so he could start the run. He told them that he was going to finish the run, even if he had to "crawl every last mile". The Cancer Society did not know if he was going to finish the run, but they supported him once a doctor said that he was able to run. The left ventricle of Fox's heart was larger than normal. Doctors told Fox about the risks of the run. They did not think his heart was a problem. They supported his run when he told them he was going to stop running if he had heart problems.
Fox wrote to many companies. He asked them for money so he could do the run. He also wrote letters asking for money for a fake leg he could use for running. The Ford Motor Company gave him a camper van, and Imperial Oil gave him fuel for it. Adidas gave him running shoes. Fox did not take money from companies that wanted him to advertise what they sold. He only wanted cancer research to get money from his run.
Marathon of Hope
The Marathon of Hope started on April 12, 1980. Fox started it when he put his fake leg into the Atlantic Ocean, on the coast of St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. He also filled two bottles with water from the ocean. He wanted to keep one to remember the run, and pour the other into the Pacific Ocean when he finished in Victoria, British Columbia. Fox's friend, Douglas Alward, helped him by giving him food and driving the van.
When he started the Marathon of Hope, Fox had to run through very bad weather. He ran through strong wind, rain, and snow before he got to Channel-Port aux Basques. The 10,000 people in the town cheered for him. They gave him $10,000. During the run, Fox got angry at people he thought were stopping him from running. He also got mad at Alward. Fox's brother, Darrell, joined them when they got to Nova Scotia. This was so Fox did not get mad at Alward as much.When he ran through Quebec, Fox had many problems because he could not speak French. Many people driving cars also tried to get him off the road. Fox got to Montreal on June 22. By the time he was in Montreal, people had given $200,000 to cancer research. The creator of Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts, Isadore Sharp, let Fox's group stay at his hotel and get food. He also said he was going to donate $2 for every mile Fox ran. Sharp got almost 1,000 other people to also do this. This was because Sharp's son died of cancer, so he wanted Fox to finish his run. The Canadian Cancer Society told Fox that more people would donate to cancer research if he got to Ottawa on Canada Day (July 1). He stayed in Montreal for a few more days to do this.
Fox came to Ontario on June 28. Many people were on the roads to cheer for him. The Ontario Provincial Police protected him with police cars while he ran. Even though it was very hot, he still ran 26 miles (42 km) every day. When he got to Ottawa, he met Pierre Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada. He was also honored at many sports games in the city. He did a kickoff (kicking the ball from the middle of the field to start a football game) at a Canadian Football League game. Fox was excited that he was being honored.
On July 11, Fox ran to Toronto. 10,000 people were cheering for Fox when he came into the city. Darryl Sittler, a National Hockey League player, gave him one of his hockey jerseys while he was running. The Cancer Society got about $100,000 on July 11. He threw the first pitch at a baseball game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians. Bobby Orr, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, met Fox and gave him $25,000 for cancer research. Fox thought meeting Orr was the best part of the run.
Fox was getting more popular. The Cancer Society asked him to go to more events, and speak to more people. Fox tried to do as much as he could to raise money, even if it made him run more than he needed to. Newspapers like the Toronto Star started writing news about his personal life, which he did not like. Some newspapers wrote negative news about Fox, such as The Globe and Mail saying he was only running because a doctor did not give him the right diagnosis. Fox said this news was "trash".
End of the run and Canadian response
Fox did not stop running during the Marathon of Hope, except for when he took the break in Montreal. He even ran on his 22nd birthday. He often had pain in his lower legs, and got cysts on the end of his right leg. He also got dizzy many times. At one point, his ankle hurt for a long time. Fox thought that he fractured it, but he ran for three days until he went to a doctor. The doctor told him it was tendonitis (an injury in the tendon), and that it could get better with painkillers. In late August, Fox said he was tired before he even started running each day. On September 1, outside Thunder Bay, Ontario, Fox stopped because he had pain in his chest. He kept running because people cheered him on. After running a few more miles, he still had chest pain, and had problems breathing. He asked Alward to drive him to a hospital. The next day, Fox told reporters that his cancer came back, and spread into his lungs. He ended the run early, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 mi). People wanted to run the rest of the marathon for Fox, but he told them not to. This was because he wanted to do it himself.
People gave $1.7 million (equal to $5.7 million in 2022) to cancer research by the time he stopped running. A week after the run ended, CTV did a telethon (a television fundraiser) for Fox and the Canadian Cancer Society. It ended after five hours, and it got $10.5 million (equal to $35.5 million in 2022). The governments of British Columbia and Ontario gave $1 million to the fundraiser to help cancer research. People kept giving money during the winter. By April, people had given $23 million (equal to $77.9 million in 2022).
In September 1980, Fox became a Companion of the Order of Canada. He is the youngest person to ever be a Companion. The Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia made him a member of the Order of the Dogwood. Fox won the Lou Marsh Award, which is an award given to Canada's best athlete every year.
Death
Fox did chemotherapy many times, but his cancer kept growing. Pope John Paul II sent a letter to Fox. It said that he was praying for him. Doctors started doing new types of treatment to try and find something that would stop the cancer. He went back to the hospital on June 19, 1981 because he had pneumonia.
Fox went into a coma while he was in the hospital, and died on June 28, 1981. The Canadian government made all flags go to half-mast. This is done to honor somebody important who has died. 240 people went to his funeral in Port Coquitlam. The funeral was broadcasted on television. After he died, many Canadians gave more money to the Cancer Society.
Legacy
Terry Fox Run
While Fox was running, Isadore Sharp told him that he should make a run that people can do to give money to cancer. Fox liked the idea, but said that the run should not be a competition. The Cancer Society did not want there to be a run, because they thought that another fundraiser would mean people were going to give less money to other cancer fundraisers. Sharp and the Fox family did the fundraiser anyways. The first Terry Fox Run was on September 13, 1981. There is one every year.
Over 300,000 people went to the first Terry Fox Run. The first run made over $3.5 million, which was given to cancer research. People started doing Terry Fox Runs in other countries. In 1999, 60 different countries had Terry Fox Runs. They raised $15 million in 1999. The Terry Fox Run is the world's largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research. As of May 2022, over $850 million has been given to cancer research because of the Terry Fox Run.
Fox's disability
Fox did not call himself disabled. He told a radio station that life was more "rewarding" since he lost his leg. His run helped change how Canadians look at disabled people. Fox's run also showed disability in a positive way.
People have said that Fox's run has made the media focus on people with disabilities doing very large things, instead of looking at them do normal things. Others have also said the way the media showed Fox made it seem as if a disability was only a problem for the person with it, instead of it also being a problem based on how others look at people with disabilities.
References
Other websites
The Terry Fox Foundation
History Minute PSA
More about Fox, including interviews and news reports
1958 births
1981 deaths
Canadian activists
Cancer deaths in British Columbia
Deaths from bone cancer
People from Winnipeg
Sportspeople from British Columbia
Disability activists
Canadian sportspeople with disabilities