| “They
would be rough-housing it on the front lawn and I would
try and play football with them and would get thrown around,”
Moss recalled. “They didn’t want their little
sister hanging around with them. I grew up with sports
bruises and learned not to cry about it.”
It wasn’t just her siblings, however.
Whether it was playing shinny on the hockey
rink out back, hopping on the nearest ski-doo or throwing
on the cross-country skis to make her way from point A
to point B, Moss was most in her element keeping active,
typically with similar minded neighbourhood kids, most
of whom were boys.
Mere weeks into the start of her secondary
school journey at LDSS, Moss was selected to run cross-country.
She would be part of the field that welcomed females to
OFSAA XC for the very first time. She cracked the basketball
roster, as a rookie, for the first of five times, suiting
up as a senior by the time she reached grade ten.
Still, it was another sporting pursuit
altogether, one that clearly captured the ethnic flavour
of her community, where Moss most excelled. “I was
a very good cross-country skier,” admitted the long-time
spouse of Track North head coach Dick Moss.
“There used to be a lot of loppets,
given the influence of the large Finnish community in
Walden. I still remember ordering my new boots that came
from Norway - and there was always a sauna around. We
would all be having a sauna, then jumping in the creek.
That was when you could get away with it.”
Moss travelled to Thunder Bay to compete
at the Canadian Junior Championships, finishing second
to twin sisters and future Olympians Shirley and Sharon
Firth, while still at Lively High.
“I was probably better suited for
cross country skiing (than basketball) because of my build,”
noted the 5’4” guard. Physically suited -
yes. Socially - maybe not quite as much.
“I liked basketball a lot,”
said Moss of her decision to attend the Laurentian tryouts
as a freshman. “It’s a team sport and I’m
kind of a gregarious, outgoing person.”
(there may not be a single close acquaintance
of Moss who did not just spit out their coffee and scream
“Ya think?” as they read that last line)
Yes, Moss is what you might think of as
that walking, talking one-person party, the individual
that can completely light up a room the moment that she
steps in. That was, in part, the role she would play with
the powerhouse Lady Vees.
Limited court time would not do justice
to the lack of opportunity that Moss endured through her
first two years at L.U. - non existent court time is surely
more appropriate. Still, she was more than a little adept
at keeping spirits light, making teammates laugh. Heck,
she got her bus driving license along the way to spell
Vickery behind the wheel of the team van on those long
Saturday night trips north.
All in the name of carving herself a niche
on the team.
“I played all four years, four national
championship years,” said Moss. “It taught
me to problem solve, and never quit. In some ways, I was
a bit of a glue for the team. My purpose changed to: what
can I get out of this experience, how does it benefit
me.”
There is simply no way around the influence
of the formative years on all of us. Terry Moss is no
different. In that sense, it would be impossible not to
attribute at least some of the foundation for the incredible
journey that she has enjoyed in the four decades, post-L.U.,
to the core principles engrained at that time.
At the age of 29, Moss would run her first
and only marathon, a source of pride, to this day.
Basketball, ski, yoga, swimming, curling,
snowshoeing and so much more have all remained part of
her life, even as she immersed herself in the school coaching
ranks, taking both cross-country and hoops teams to OFSAA
during her tenure at Lo-Ellen.
“I think I became a good basketball
coach, when I was done playing,” she said. “I
think I was a lot more aware of who was playing and who
wasn’t playing.”
But this is still only a small part of
the picture.
“I hiked Machu Picchu (five years
ago),” said Moss. “That was the hardest thing
I have ever done, including running the marathon.”
An avid traveller, Moss has criss-crossed
the globe in search of adventure, traversing Camino Trails
in Spain and Portugal, just two of the more than two dozen
foreign countries she has visited. Having been selected
as part of a 24-women Canadian delegation for a curling
exchange with Scotland, she is anxiously awaiting an easing
of restrictions.
Through it all, she will learn.
That truism has never changed for Terry
(Hanson) Moss.
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