Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story by Robyn Doolittle Read Free Book Online

Because of the age difference, Doug and Rob were only at Scarlett at the same time for one year. Most of the people contacted did not respond. Several former classmates noted that the Ford brothers had a reputation for fighting, especially the eldest, Randy. One person described him as a “terror.” But the majority of those who were willing to comment described Doug and Rob as two friendly jocks who used to throw wild parties around the family’s backyard pool. They were popular and good-looking. Both devoted their high school years to sports.
    Doug Jr. played hockey and threw shot put, but his passion was the gridiron. Football was big at Scarlett in those days. “We probably had the best football team that was out there. There was a [big] conflict between us and Richview Collegiate,” saidformer student Mark Stenoff. One year, Scarlett’s Raiders were the better squad, then it would switch.
    When kids weren’t cheering on their home team, they were partying at someone’s house or in the local park. “You know, it was a rock-and-roll school, basically. That’s the simplest way I could put it,” Stenoff said. “We had a lot of rockers.… You know what I mean? What do you call ’em, long-hairs, I guess. It was a cool school.”
    In his graduating yearbook, Doug wrote, “Scarlett Heights is nice and hearty every day was a party. I can’t believe I’m still alive after five. Make it 3 in a row Raiders.”
    Once Rob Ford came along, he was immediately cast as “Doug’s little brother.” When he was in Grade 10, he made captain of the junior football team. The caption on the team photo that year mistakenly read “Doug Ford.” Football was everything to Rob. Doug Sr. sent his youngest to a prestigious youth football camp in the US over the summer. Rob was not naturally a gifted player, but he worked hard, beefed up, and became a star on the team. “All I remember is him running the track. You’d drive by after school and you’d see him running the track. He had a lot of heart,” said former Scarlett student Bill Gianakopoulos.
    “Rob was a good person. He was a generous person,” said Dave Miteff, who played two years of football with the future mayor. “The second year that we played, we won the city championship.… [Rob] had a party at his house, and the Fords paid for it all. The father had somebody videotape the game, and he gave us all copies.”
    Laura Biernat, who had drama class with Rob at Scarlett Heights, remembers him as being shy. “He wasn’t at all like theman you see today,” she said. “He was a quieter kind of fellow as a teenager.”
    Outside the classroom, Rob was social, but he didn’t seem to have many close friends. He used to run with the “rich kids” in Etobicoke, spending weekends at summer cottages or flying down to someone’s vacation house in Florida for a few days. By this point, the Fords weren’t yet ultra-wealthy, but they had enough to keep Rob hanging out with the in-crowd. Status was worth the investment.
    “He wasn’t exactly part of that group, but he hung out with them,” said a friend of the brothers from high school. “Robbie was just sort of around a lot. He was friendly with everyone.”
    Along the way, Rob made friends with a transfer student from nearby Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School named Fabio Basso, said David Profitt, a mutual friend of the two. Basso had long dark hair that covered his eyes. He was laid-back, a “quiet stoner,” according to others who knew him. (Twenty-five years later, it was outside Basso’s yellow-brick home in Etobicoke that the infamous photo of Rob with two alleged gang members and a murdered twenty-one-year-old would be taken.)
    “Robbie liked his weed,” said a high school friend. So he and Basso got along well.
    Rob spent a few years drifting after high school. He dreamed of a career in football, but never made it past the varsity level. At Carleton University in Ottawa, Ford spent one season on the