Art Chapman was a provincial-level champion in lacrosse, soccer, softball and track and field in his native British Columbia, in addition to dabbling in baseball and hockey, but it was in basketball that he found the most success. With the Victoria Blue Ribbons, who later became the Victoria Dominoes, he won five national championships: 1933, 1935, 1939, 1942, and 1946. He the lost the most important one, however, when the Dominoes were defeated by the Windsor V-8s in 1936 and selected to represent Canada at the inaugural basketball tournament at the Summer Olympics. His performance, however, as well as that of Doug Peden and Chapman’s brother Chuck, was impressive enough that they were invited to join the Windsor squad in Berlin. At the Games Art was Canada’s tallest player, at 6’3” (190.5 cm), and he participated in all six of Canada’s matches, scoring 39 points on the way to earning a silver medal, which he received after Canada lost the final 19-8 against the United States. He remained involved in amateur basketball through the 1940s and was a player-coach and business manager with the Vancouver Hornets of the Pacific Coast Professional Basketball League in 1947-1948, the league’s second and last season. He retired from active competition when the league folded and retired to private life, dying of a heart attack in February 1986. Among others, he has been inducted into the Canadian Basketball, Windsor-Essex County, British Columbia Sports, and Greater Victoria Sports Halls of Fame.
Canada