Bio:
Dr. Donald Alexander Young was born on Feb. 15, 1907 in Almonte, Ont., and attended Lisgar Collegiate. At the age of 18, he won the first of two Grey Cups with the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1925 and 1926. He entered McGill in 1928 and over the next seven years, lettered 13 times out a possible 14 before graduating from the faculty of medicine in 1935.
One of the greatest team players in McGill sports history, the 6-foot-2, 208-pounder was a seven-time all-star at flying wing and quarterback, including the 1932 season when he was the only collegiate player voted by reporters to The Canadian Press east all-star team.
Young was the football team's first three-time captain (1931-33) and led the Redmen to a Yates Cup championship in 1928. In basketball, he was a star centre, captaining the team in 1930 and leading McGill to five Dodd's Cup city championships and four intercollegiate titles between 1930 and 1935.
A June 15, 1936 article in The Montreal Star stated that:
"Montreal's greatest post-war athletic figure leaves Montreal on July 1st after 8 remarkable years in this City... Donald A. Young leaves ... to take up new duties at the Ottawa Civic Hospital.. Young became McGill's most dominating athletic figure, a keen, hard playing sportsman admired by all. Dr. Young will take with him to his new post the goodwill and best wishes of thousands of the McGill followers. He won a little, lost a little, took his bumps and gave them. His place in McGill's athletic hall of fame is secure. His progress in the bigger game that starts on July 1st will be watched with interest by all."
On the eve of his last football game at McGill, a Nov. 9, 1934 article in The McGill Daily stated:
"... another factor which should make the game one not to be missed by any conscientious McGill fan is the fact that tomorrow, one of the greatest figures that Canadian intercollegiate football has ever known, bids farewell to the game whose finest principles he has so nobly upheld. Don Young is the man. He has played 7 years for the Martlet and no one can be said to have given his all more unselfishly and loyally than the lad who joined the Red ranks... and almost from his first appearance on the Molson Stadium gridiron, proved the same defensive bulwark and offensive gun which has been his water-mark through the years."
He was a member of McGill Athletics Board in 1931 and 1932, served as a major in World War II with Canadian Army Medical Corps and was awarded the Order of the British Empire. Young was inducted into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame in 1970. He died in Ottawa on March 2, 1988.
Honours
Signed by a pro team (1926 M.A.A.A (CRFU))
-signed by Canada's Rugby/Football Union's Ottawa
