Photo: John DeCoste
Members of the 1971 national champion Acadia basketball Axemen gathered for a 40th reunion during the CIS Final Eight March 11-13 in Halifax (in which this year’s Axemen team were participants). Nine of 10 surviving players were on hand for all or part of the reunion as well as at least three Acadia cheerleaders from that season. The cheerleaders pictured are: (left to right) Val Evans, Joanne McDermid and Sue (Young) Mitton. The team members pictured are: (left to right) Steve Pound, Rick Eaton, Terry Condon, Jon Beausang, Freeman Schofield, Gary Folker and Tom Staines. Missing when the photo was taken: Peter Phipps and Paul Talbot.
player, so he brought in McGee, who according to Eaton, “lived up to his nickname. Bruiser was great. He made us the physically toughest team in every game we played.” But as tough as McGee was, Tom Farrington, another freshman, “was even tougher. He and Bruiser used to have contests, and Tom would always win.” Farrington and McGee have since passed on, but are definitely not forgotten by their former teammates.
Respected one another Beausang, who played four years at Acadia and competed at three nationals, was also a freshman on the 1970-71 team. “One thing I remember is the amount of respect we all had for each other,” he says. “Rick and Gary and Steve were the leaders, and they all had such an incredible work ethic.” Tom Staines, another first-year player on the 1970-71 squad, recalls that year as “a tremendous experience for an 18-year-old freshman. Our goal, from day one, was to win a championship. We were a great team, and we all got along so well. We still do, and we’re always getting together.” In fact, nine of the surviving team members – Pound, Eaton, Folker, Schofield, Beausang, Staines, Terry Condon, Peter Phipps and Paul Talbot – attended all or part of the reunion. Fred Moczulski and coaches Chapman and Logue were unable to make it, though they have been at past gatherings. To Beausang, who maintains close ties to Acadia from his home near Portland, ME, the reunion was great. “How many teams do this?” he asked. “Come together like this, and from so far apart? I have friends who are
really envious of us, and how close we’ve been over the years and still are.” Folker agrees. “I made good friends at Acadia 40 years ago who are still friends today,” he says. “I speak to Rick Eaton on the phone every week; he’s in Atlanta and I’m in Toronto.” Pound is back in his native Maine, where he remains involved in education, a field in which he holds a Masters and a Doctorate. “To me, it’s not necessarily the winning, though that part was nice. The emotional part for me is that we’ve all managed to remain friends for all these years, and that we’re all pretty talented and successful people in our own right.” As basketball players, he added, “the biggest thing was that we were all very focused. We knew teams win games, not individuals and, as the saying goes, there’s no ‘I’ in team. We all knew what we had to do to be as successful as we can be.” Pound was also pleased that a number of the Acadia cheerleaders from the 1970-71 season attended the reunion, including Val Evans, Joanne McDermid and Sue (Young) Mitton. “They were such an important part of our team and our season, and I’m so glad they were able to be here and celebrate and remember with us,” he says. Pound is pleased also that he and his teammates have retained their ties to Acadia, even into the next generation. Both his children are Acadia graduates, as are two of Staines’s sons; Beausang’s daughter; and at least two daughters of Peter Phipps, the team’s point guard. Folker’s son Michael not only attended Acadia, but also played two years of basketball for the Axemen.
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