Glen Mervyn was a member of the University of British Columbia’s successful rowing team of the late 1950s and early 1960s and made a number of appearances for Canada on the international scene during this period. His first was the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, where he captured gold in the coxed eights. His next stop was the 1959 Pan American Games, where he earned silver in the eights alongside David Anderson, Sohen Biln, and the non-Olympians Ian Beardmore, John Cartmel, John Madden, Dave Park, Peter Robbins, and Lawrence Stapleton. He was then selected to represent his nation at the 1960 Summer Olympics, where he won another silver in the eights, this time with Anderson, Biln, Donald Arnold, Walter D’Hondt, Nelson Kuhn, John Lecky, Archie MacKinnon, and Bill McKerlich. Mervyn retired from active competition after the Games, but served as a coach at UBC and for the national team during the 1960s. He later acquired a master’s degree in education from Harvard University, taught physics and math, and was active in cycling, even after being diagnosed with colon cancer in 1992. He died in March 2000 after an eight-year struggle with the disease and has been inducted into the British Columbia (1977) and University of British Columbia (2012) Sports Halls of Fame with his silver medal-winning crew.
Canada