Mike Gallo

Mike Gallo in retirement. Photograph by Adrian Lam of the Times Colonist.

Mike Gallo
Born: March 25, 1943 (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
Died: February 6, 2015 (Victoria, British Columbia)

Mike Gallo was a physical education teacher at an elementary school in Victoria, B.C., when a boy in his split Grade 6-7 class came out for basketball.

The boy, who had been born in South Africa, preferred soccer as a sport. “This was a new sport for Steve but it didn’t take long before he was playing at a level above his peers,” Gallo later wrote. “Steve took to basketball quickly, working hard on the fundamentals and his shooting skills. He would walk to school bouncing a tennis ball, first with the right hand, then with the left. The object of this exercise was not to stop his dribble until he reached school or home.”

Steve, of course, was Steve Nash. Gallo was his first basketball coach, a fun-loving instructor who watched from afar as his prodigy went on to a glorious career as Canada’s greatest basketball player of all time, including back-to-back most valuable player awards in the NBA.

Without giving up his daytime teaching job, Gallo became coach of the University of Victoria’s varsity women’s team in 1970. In his first season, the team won a national senior-A championship. (A national women’s university championship tournament was established after Gallo became coach.) He built the program into a championship contender over seven years of prowling the sideline.

His Vikettes teams went undefeated in Canada West league play his three final seasons as coach, only to be defeated in the semifinals of the national tournament.

“Those three years of going undefeated in league play only to finish third in the country almost killed me,” he once said.

He was replaced by Kathy Shields, whose teams went on to win eight national titles.

His time with the Vikettes was al the more remarkable for his fear of flying. He would leave Victoria a day early on Thursdays to ride the ferry to Vancouver to catch the train for weekend games in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Alta., and Saskatoon, Sask.

Gallo was the namesake son of a career naval man, whose 35-year career included Second World War service on convoy duty aboard HMCS Prince Robert, a steamship passenger liner converted into an auxiliary cruiser.

The younger Mike gallo graduated from Victoria (B.C.) High School, where he was a popular figure on students’ council and on the Totems basketball team. A 5-foot-7 guard, he was known as a floor quarterback and as a playmaker. After graduation, he played senior-A basketball in Victoria.

Nash always thanked Gallo for introducing him to basketball. The coach, who retired as vice-principal of Hillcrest Elementary in Victoria in 1997, was invited by the NBA star to serve as a coach at Steve Nash Foundation Charity Classic games in Vancouver.

Bobby Croft

Robert Alexander Croft
Born: March 17, 1946 (Hamilton, Ontario)
Died: March 23, 2014 (Burlington, Ontario)

Bobby Croft was the first Canadian basketball player to be offered a scholarship to a Division 1 school in the United States. He became captain of the University of Tennessee Volunteers in his fourth year and was touted as one of the top professional prospects in the game.

In 1970, he was selected in the eighth round of the NBA draft by the Boston Celtics, opting instead to play in the upstart NBA rival American Basketball Association. He wound up playing a single season of pro hoops, later regretting the decision to not sign with the Celtics.

The 6-foot-10, 200-pound centre first won notice for his play at Hill Park High in Hamilton, Ont.. Stuart Aberdeen, the former coach of the Axemen at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., took a coaching post at Tennessee and was instrumental in getting Croft a scholarship offer.

The centre became a starter for the varsity squad in his sophomore year.

“I had excellent coaching at Hill Park but when I got to Tennessee they made me change everything,” he told the Hamilton Spectator in 1995. “I hadn’t had specific coaching about my position. It was frustrating being yelled at every day. But I wanted to make it really bad so I could show that Canadians were a good basketball commodity.”

He was rebounding leader his final two seasons with the Vols and named to the All-Conference first team by the coaches in 1970. (He was named to the Southeastern second team by the wire services AP and UPI.) The pressures of being named captain and playing in a basketball hotbed led to the development of stomach ulcers.

“He’s a good shooter,” Haywood Harris, the sports information director for the Vols told the Montreal Gazette in 1970. “His outside shooting is great and he’s real good on the boards. He can be tough and he’s a good jumper.”

He was selected by Celtics at No. 123 overall. His ABA rights were claimed by Dallas Chaparrals. At age 22, with two young children, Croft and his wife did not want to live in Dallas. He and another centre, Dan Issel of the University of Kentucky, an all-American known as Mr. Kentucky, were traded to Kentucky Colonels. He rejected Red Auerbach and the Celtics in favour of signing with the Colonels, the deciding factor the greater money ($30,000 plus a chance at a $10,000 bonus) on offer by the Colonels.

“It was the biggest mistake of my life,” Croft said later. “Auerbach was known for bringing people along slowly. I would have learned a lot. With the Colonels I was thrown right into it.”

Croft quickly became a benchwarmer in Louisville behind Issel, who went on to lead the ABA in scoring in 1970-71 with an average of 29.9 points per game. Croft was traded midseason back to the Chaparrals, where he completed a miserable season.

He was cut before the start of the next season, had unsuccessful tryouts with other ABA and NBA teams, went on to play pro ball in Italy and Mexico. He was also a member of the Canadian national team, a spot he had first won as a Grade 11 student.

After retiring as a player, Croft eventually returned to Ontario, where he worked for Westinghouse and Dofasco for almost 30 years. He also operated a 40-hectare cattle far, near Cayuga, Ont. The farm was sold in 2010.