• Star of basketball team that won the Western Canada Interuniversity Championship (1952-53)
• Played volleyball in her senior year, winning the Western Canada Championship.
• Played basketball for the Calgary Maxwells, winning the Alberta Championships four times.
• An exceptionally active volunteer with golf, figure skating, CGIT, and the Spruce Meadows horse jumping championships.
• Awarded the 1953 Women’s Major Athletic Award

In the early 1950s Joan McFarlane Thomson was one of the most dynamic women basketball players in Canada. Tall, talented and left-handed she dominated the area around the basket applying the skills she had developed at a very early age. During her youth, Joan had participated in all sports in the Calgary school system. John Mayell, a well known physical educator, introduced Joan and her fellow students to the game of basketball. (It was not a part of the curriculum, but taught after school.) From the age of 10 onwards she enjoyed a valuable, memorable experience as an athlete. Those early years marked the beginning of her lifelong love affair with sport and the game of basketball in particular.

While a student at Western High School Joan participated in a range of sports. She excelled as a track and field athlete competing in high jump, long jump and as a member of one a Western Canada High School record setting relay team. But in the game of basketball she became a dominant player. Her high school team went undefeated for two season and lost only one game in her senior year. Although still in high school Joan played Senior A basketball for McArthurs and then the Wittichens.

In 1949, after graduation from high school, Joan traveled north to Edmonton where she enrolled at the University of Alberta in the Faculty of Education. In her first year she played as a starter for the Pandas basketball team who, with Joan as their talented centre, went on to win the Cecil Race Memorial Trophy and the Western Canadian Intervarsity Championship in 1951-1952 and 1952-1953. During her senior year she discovered volleyball and joined the Pandas. She became the power hitter in a setter-spiker duo, an early innovation to the fledgling game of power volleyball. The Pandas went on to win the Western Canada championship. Joan’s prowess earned her the U of A’s major athletic award.

Joan McFarlane Thomson was a leader in fields other than athletics. Multi-facetted and widely respected across the campus, she was elected in her final year to serve as the Student Union Vice-President, For these and her many other service roles she was named to the University of Alberta Gold Key Society in 1953.

After graduating in the first class of the newly created physical education program, Joan was invited to play for the Calgary Maxwells Sr. A Womens Basketball team (1953-1956). She starred on the Maxwells who won the Alberta championship in each of her years as a player. In the spring of 1954 the Maxwells traveled to Vancouver to meet the perennial national champion Eilers for the Canadian title. Although the Wittichens lost in the five game finals Joan led both teams in scoring in several of the games. Her coach, Ron Southern, told reporters that Joan was one of the best woman basketball players he had ever seen.

Joan also taught in both the Calgary and Edmonton Public School system from 1953 to 1956 (Balmoral and McKernan Jr. High Schools) where she coached many sports. One of her McKernan girls basketball teams had the thrill of an undefeated season only to suffer the agony of defeat in the city play-off. Through the wonder of sport Joan has helped to produce lasting memories for many of her students.

In 1956 Joan married John Thomson. They have five children: four sons and a daughter. In 1975 their 12 year old son was diagnosed type two (insulin dependent) diabetes. On moving to Texas later that year, Joan immediately became a volunteer with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDF) and she continued this work when she returned to Calgary in 1978. There she founded a JDF Chapter becoming its first president. The following year, after moving to Ottawa, Joan establishment of the JDF Ottawa Chapter and worked with the Chapter for six years. During that period she also served on the JDF National Board. To extend the hands of helpfulness, in 1979 Joan and her family created and funded the Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research Foundation Chair (named after her mother). Joan remains actively involved with this program today.

The world of volunteerism has been a significant part of Joan’s life. She has served as a Superintendent of the Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT) (1953-1956) and as the President of the Calgary CGIT Board (1974-1975). She has also been the Junior Golf Representative of the Canadian Ladies Golf Association, and as a volunteer with the Calgary-hosted Canadian Figure Skating Championships (1972) and the World Figure Skating Championships (1974). For eleven years Joan served as a volunteer with the world renowned Spruce Meadows Horse Jumping Championships (1985-1996).

Throughout her life Joan McFarlane Thomson has retained her love of basketball. In the fall of 2004 she joined with other enthusiastic competitors to form the Retreads Women’s Basketball Team which won the gold medal in the 65+ age category at the 2005 World Masters Games in Edmonton.

A dynamic athlete, a student leader, a committed teacher and an invaluable volunteer, the University of Alberta is proud to add the name of Joan Thomson (nee McFarlane) to the Sports Wall of Fame.