Darrell Davis: Nelson was more than a basketball star

When Glen Nelson joined the University of Regina men’s basketball team in the early ’80s, it was a non-winning joke of a program that couldn’t compare to its northern neighbour in Saskatoon, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies.

When he graduated five years later as the Cougars’ all-time scoring and rebounding leader, Nelson’s baseline-to-baseline efforts had helped lay a foundation that put Regina on equal footing with the Huskies.

Eventually aided by the three-point line, which didn’t exist during Nelson’s university career, it took 26 years before anyone eclipsed the scoring record. Nelson still held the rebounding record — “Turnovers, too,” he would say with a smirk — when he died earlier this week of a rare cancer that afflicted him after he had been confined to a wheelchair because of a paralyzing back surgery.

He leaves hundreds of close friends from his career as a player, coach, official and scorekeeper.

Through it all he was always self-effacing, laughing at his successes and failures, in love with his two daughters and thankful for the opportunities he got from basketball and the people who are going to miss him terribly.