Dr. George Frederick Laing was born Oct 20, 1892 in Windsor, Ont. At McGill, he played centre-half in rugby-football and starred on the tennis team. He was instrumental in leading McGill to the 1912 and 1913 Yates Cup championship rugby-football teams. He captained the 1913 squad and graduated from medical school with an M.D.C.M. in 1915. In tennis, he won the intercollegiate singles and doubles championship and was also the Quebec champion.
A diminutive speedster, Laing set a McGill rugby-football record for longest kick return which still stands with a 125-yard run-back for a try against Queen's in Kingston on Oct. 24, 1914.
"George Laing was easily the best athlete I ever had anything to do with," said his former coach Frank Shaughnessy. "In addition he had high character and dignity."
In 1914 he was described by The Montreal Herald as follows:
"Laing, the McGill centre-half, is the most brilliant player in Canadian football today - intercollegiate or inter-provincial. He has speed, strength, kicking ability and, more than all these, he has football brains. Laing is not a big man, nor is he a spectacular player. He is five feet, nine inches in height and weighs 159. It is his speed and trickiness which make him the hardest man in football to keep back. Laing has made more long runs through broken fields than any other player in Canadian football this season."
After his playing days, Laing enlisted in the McGill medical corps and served in France during World War I with the Royal Army medical corps and the famous Leinsters British regiment. He died in Windsor on Oct. 23, 1963 at the age of 71.
