ONE HIGHLIGHT
Ann MacVicar in a photo from the year 2000. The Yarmouth native, who lives in Bedford, is included on U Sports’ list of the 100 greatest Canadian female university basketball players of the century.
“When you have an older brother, you try and compete at their level, so you have to try harder,” she said.
Then it was off to university. Reflecting on the experience of going to Acadia for her first year and making the varsity basketball squad, she said, “You tried out for the team, but they had no recruiting, no scholarships, no pre-selection. You went and you tried out.”
A highlight of her final year of collegiate basketball came in a game against the University of New Brunswick,
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which had won 54 straight games. With her team trailing by a point, MacVicar finished the contest by sinking two free throws to lift Acadia to a 31-30 victory and put an end to UNB’s win streak.
She played basketball after university, and at one point served as president of the Nova Scotia Women’s Basketball Association. She played for Nova Scotia in the Canada Games in 1967 and 1971.
She married Donald MacVicar in 1963 — recalling the wedding took place in the United church on Collins Street in Yarmouth, which later became the home of the Yarmouth County Museum. The couple had three children, all of whom became involved in sports.
MacVicar worked as a phys-ed teacher, but she gave it up in the early 1970s to focus on her family.
She doesn’t make it down to Yarmouth much these days, although she was making the trip while her mom was still alive. Her mother died in 1978. Her father had passed away 15 years earlier. But MacVicar still has family and friends in Yarmouth and the place remains special to her.
“I have wonderful cousins in Yarmouth,” she said. “I have had a strong connection to Yarmouth.”
She also has some cherished memories of growing up in Yarmouth, saying, “It was wonderful ... absolutely wonderful. The freedom and the joy and the playing, because we just played and played. It was a great place.”