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- Chicago Tribune, 16 May 1986
USFL Pioneer John Bassett Dies
John F. Bassett, an early investor in the World Football League and United States Football League and the father of teen-age tennis star Carling Bassett, died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer. He was 47.
In 1976, Bassett underwent an operation for melanoma, a malignant form of skin cancer and it changed his competitive love of sports. "All of a sudden I didn't care," he recalled at the time. "I realized I had a beautiful wife, four great kids and winning or losing games wasn't life and death any more." About two years ago, doctors discovered two malignant tumors in his brain.
He recently sold his interests in the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits. Bassett previously owned an interest in the Canadian League's Toronto Argonauts and the WFL's Memphis Southmen. He also put together a group of investors in 1973 that bought the Ottawa Nationals of the World Hockey Association and moved the team to Toronto. But the team eventually moved to Birmingham, Ala, and later went out of business when the National Hockey League absorved four WHA teams in 1979.
Bassett was known as "Johnny F" to distinguish him from his father, media magnate John W. Bassett, chairman of Baton Broadcasting Inc. which controls the CTV network.
Tennis was Bassett's best sport, and at age 15 he won the Canadian Open junion doubles championships. But his prowess was later surpassed by his daughter Carling, at age 18 a top-ranke international player.
Bassett was an early investor in the WFL with the Toronto Northmen. He quickly made an impact with a $3.5 million package that lured three mainstays from the NFL champion Miami Dolphins -- Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Paul Warfield -- to jump to the new league in 1974. The signing of the three Miami stars created such turmoil with the Canadian government and the CFL that the club was eventually forced to move to Memphis. The WFL folded in 1975, and Bassett's U.S. ties eventually took him to Florida, where he invested heavily in real estate and, later, in the Bandits. Mr. Bassett is survived by his wife, children Carling, Joh, 25, Vicky, 23, and Heidi, 16, as well as his father and his mother, Moira Bassett.
Sherbrooke Daily Record
Leonard started it all one winter's day
In the late 19th Century, one of the most prominent publishers in Quebec's Eastern Townships was Leonard S. Channell. The author of a history of Compton county, he founded a weekly called the Compton County Chronicle, and another in 1883 called the Stanstead Ovserver.
This was at a time when Sherbrooke and the surrounding region were largely Anglophone.
In Sherbrook itself, there were already at least two English-language weeklies, the Sherbrooke Gazette, established in 1837, and the Sherbrooke Examiner, started in 1879.
Channell believed the time was ripe for a daily newspaper in Sherbrooke, and on Feb. 9, 1897, the first issue of his Sherbrooke Daily Record appeared.
Channell had no building, no printing press and no type. He made arrangements with L.A. Belanger, publisher of a French-language weekly, for the use of his press and production facilities. Channell rented a room on the ground floor of Bealnger's building, and that was the business and editorial department of the fledgling daily.
Is wasn't until a year later that the Record had its own press; a small and primitive hand-fed machine installed in a small buiding in downtown Sherbrooke. And by 1904, the paper had a circulation of 5,300, making it the largest English-language daily in the province outside of Montreal.
In 1906, a handsome new three-storey Record building rose on the site of the old one at 199 Wellington St. North, and a more up-to-date flatbed press was installed.
City's two weeklies absorbed.
The two existing weeklies were no match for the robust Record so between 1904 and 1908, Channell bought them out and incorporated them into his paper.
Channell died at only 41 years of age in 1909, and Victor Morrill took over management of the Record. In 1911, the newspaper had its third press - a rotary type that printed the paper until 1968. Morrill died in 1928, and Channell's widow, Winnifred Buckland took over control of the Record.
In 1930, she sold the paper to veteran Ontario publisher Alfred Wood, who raised the Record's circulation to 10,000.
Wood died in 1935, and a year later, John Bassett Sr., president and managing director of the Montreal Gazette, purchased the majority of the common shares in the Record. This began an association with the Bassett family that lasted 32 years.
Bassett's editor and general manager was C.P. Buckland until his death in 1937, and J.K. Flaherty took over the position for some years later. In 1944, Ivan Saunders, who had been on the staff of the Gazette was appointed the business manager, later became in effect the publisher, and remained with the Record for a quarter of a century. In 1945, Bassett's son, John Bassett Jr., became editor and vice-president of the Record, and shortly after bought the paper from his father.
Bassett, Jr. only stayed in Sherbrooke for three years after that. He moved his family back to Toronto in 1949 to become advertising director for the Toronto Telegram. But he and his family retained ownership of the Record and in 1952, Bassett, Jr., used the Record as collateral to gain control of the Telegram.
There were a number of editors of the Record during the postwar Bassett years. Doug Amaron, a former war correspondent, was the paper's managing editor from 1945 to the early 1950's, when he left to re-join the Canadian Press news co-operative. Cuthbert Jones, a veteran of the paper since 1929, took over from him.
Training ground for Torono Telegram editors.
Then Bassett, Jr. decided to use the Record as a training ground for some of his Telegram journalists, and there followed in quick seccession George MacFarlane, Arnold Agnew and John Cranford, all from Toronto. In 1961, Hugh Doherty, A Sherbrooke resident, was appointed editor-in-chief, and was there until mid-1968.
On January 22, 1968, the Record became the first daily in Canada to be printed by the then-new offset process, using state-of-the-art photoelectric production. This was done in new quarters on CPR Terrace with a new press, replacing the traditional newspaper press at the Wellington Street building, both of which had been in service for almost half a century.
But Bassett, Jr. had lost interest in the Record, and in August, 1968, sold it to a company headed by his long-time associate, Ivan Saudners. Len Ryan took over as editor of the paper.
The new press and move to a new building, however, thad been expensive. The English-speaking population of the Eastern Townships was continuing to decline and this cut into circulation and revenue.
Conrad Black and partners buy the Record
In the spring of 1969, the newspaper, but not the press or building, was sold to a group of partners led by Conrad Black. The cut staff by 40 per cent, and since they had no press, the paper was printed across the border in Newport, Vermont. The name was changed to The Record. It was the beginning of what became Black's world-wide media empire.
Eventually, Black and his partners (Peter White and David Radler) bought a used press, and moved the Record to an old building on Roy St. There were a number of editors during Black's ownership, including Scott Abbott, Alex Radmonivitch, and Barbara (Verity) Stevenson.
In 1977, Black sold the paper to a consortium of local businessmen headed by lawyer George MacLaren. They hired James Duff as editor, and in 1980, Charles Bury, who died the job for 16 years. The business was moved to yet another location on Delorme Street.
In 1988, MacLaren sold the Record to the late Pierre Peladeau, head of Quebecor, a major Quebec-based corporation. In January, 1999, a major fire ruined the Delorme Street building and the presses and other equipment inside, so the paper was forced into temporary quarters in nearby Lennoxville, without its own press.
In September, 1999, Black and his partners re-acquired the newspaper. In June, 2000, they moved the paper back to Sherbrooke with its own press and permanent premises on Falt St. East. Its publisher in 2001 was Randy Kinnear, and its editor Sharon McCully. In recent years, there had been an investment in new technology for the Record, the paper now has its own web site, and has been re-designed to give it a new and modern look.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1939 - 1986 (47 years)
, d. 27 Apr 1998, Toronto, Canada