McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Austin (Dink) Carroll Fonds
Fonds
1.0 m of textual records ; 50 photographs ; 3 tapes ; 1 lighter ; 3 metal plates
Austin Carroll was born in Guelph in 1899. He received his LL.B. from McGill University in 1923 but never practiced law. A star football player at McGill, he made this student interest his life’s avocation. He became the traveling road secretary for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International Baseball League, worked in advertising, publishing, and pursued a career as a writer and sports journalist, publishing as a freelancer in The Montrealer, Esquire, Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, The Reader's Digest, Liberty, and the Toronto Star Weekly. His columns on hockey and other sports ranging from boxing to salmon fishing appeared in the Montreal Gazette from 1941 until 1987. He died in Montreal in 1991. He also wrote fiction with sports settings. Carroll was probably the most literate Canadian sportswriter of his generation, and corresponded frequently with noted Canadian writer Morley Callaghan.
The fonds consists mainly of incoming correspondence, manuscript stories and articles by Austin (Dink) Carroll, mostly unpublished fiction, and drafts of articles for the sports column in the Gazette. The correspondence is from friends, family, various figures in the sports world, including Montreal hockey and baseball players, and readers of his column. The manuscripts include two novels and more than 20 short stories written in sports settings, 1930 to 1960. There is a small amount of other materials including newspaper clippings by other sport writers mainly about hockey, photographs, tapes of radio interviews, autographed programmes, notes for articles and publications, a lighter, one metal name plate, one metal press badge for golf tournament in 1971 and one metal plate of the Hamilton Tiger - Cats. Of special interest are approximately 30 letters from Morley Callaghan to Dink Carroll and/or his wife Margaret (Peg) Carroll from 1935 to the 1980's. The letters are addressed variously to Dink Carroll or to both Dink and Peg Carroll. The content covers sports, literary anecdotes and publishing activities, and the activities of mutual acquaintances. They contain observations on Morley Callaghan's writing and working habits as well.
Donated from Margaret Carroll on June 10, 1991 and August 30, 1991.
Box Listing available
Handwritten and typescript.