Paralympic history forever captured at MRU archives

Beyond being a distinguished educator, Dr. Robert (Bob) Steadward, PhD, has dedicated much of his life to supporting and developing the parasports world.

Steadward’s long and respected career in sports accessibility began with his volunteering to coach the Edmonton Handicaddies, a wheelchair basketball team, in 1967 while a student at the University of Alberta. From there he went on to help organize the first Canadian wheelchair sport national championships, hosted at the University of Alberta in 1968. He then coached for the Canadian Paralympic Committee, teaching dozens of athletes with disabilities in track and swimming, leading teams to the 1972 Paralympic Games, International Stoke Mandeville Games and the 1971 Jamaican Para Pan-American Games. His subsequent career would take him to several more Paralympics.

On top of coaching, Steadward played a vital role in the establishment of many para-sport organizations including the Alberta Wheelchair Sports Association in 1971. He was also the founding president and chairman of the Canadian Sports Fund for the Physically Disabled from 1979 to 1989.

Throughout the ’80s, Steadward worked to bring together a number of organizations into one single body to represent disabled athletes at the highest level. His efforts would culminate in the formation of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in 1989, with Steadward elected as the founding president.

And now, thanks to the work and generosity of Steadward and Dr. David Legg, PhD, of Mount Royal’s Department of Health and Physical Education, the Mount Royal Library’s Archives and Special Collections now houses an important collection of Steadward’s memorabilia and records.

An incredible gift

According to Peter Houston, associate professor, archivist and special collections librarian, fonds are “an archival term meaning all the records created and received by a single person, family or organization.”

In this case, the Robert Steadward fonds contain correspondence, reports, minutes, speeches, presentations, papers, newspapers, agendas, meeting notes, policies, bylaws, newsletters, press releases, competition results, handbooks, budgets, rules, photographs, videos, manuals, and guides. All of which were collected by Steadward in his professional life.

Fifty-six video cassettes along with 49 audio cassette tapes are contained in the fonds, along with many other keepsakes such as pins, medals, coins, banners and flags.

The collection also includes documents related to the work Steadward carried out leading up to the formation of the IPC. The goal was simple: streamline the representative body for disabled athletes.

However, that required many hours, months and years of relationship building and meetings with separate organizations, both formal and informal.

“It’s unlikely there are many copies, if any, of the documents he has donated, including meeting minutes and speeches,” Legg says.

Legg says these files and many others like them were kept by Steadward, who was not sure what to do with them once he retired from teaching.

Even once the IPC was formed, documentation around its early years was not widely available.

“It is significant in that the IPC, in 1989, did not take on professional staff until the late ’90s, and it did not even have a headquarters until 1999, so the paper filing of the origins of the IPC were sporadic,” Legg explains.

“These are documents and data that it’s very unlikely were shared or uploaded in any other way, so for people who have an interest in the origins of the Paralympic movement, there is no better place.”

Years in the making

Steadward spent most of his academic career at the University of Alberta except for a couple years spent at the University of Oregon earning his doctorate, and one at the University of Calgary.

One of his best students, he says, was Legg. Before Legg was a professor with Mount Royal’s Bachelor of Health and Physical Education program, he was a doctoral student at the U of A under the supervision of Steadward.

“I saw such great leadership in his personality and way of life and I knew he was going to continue to be a great leader, not just at Mount Royal, but beyond,” Steadward says, whose career has been recognized with the Order of Canada, the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, and the Alberta Order of Excellence. He has also been inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame, and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

It’s a relationship that goes both ways as Legg, who has also been inducted into the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, credits Steadward for where his career has taken him.

“Outside of my mother and father, Dr. Steadward is the most significant mentor to me personally and professionally,” Legg says, and credits Steadward for getting him involved with parasport at the global level.

On a personal level, Steadward introduced Legg to the woman who would become his wife. She was working at what was then the Rick Hansen Centre at U of A (now named The Steadward Centre).

It’s safe to say Steadward and Legg work well together and have for a while, so it is likely no surprise that in 2012, when Steadward was looking to donate his collection of materials, he called Legg.

Since then, it has been in Legg’s possession until he and Steadward worked together to donate everything to MRU’s Archives and Special Collections.

“I wanted to make sure that all of my materials that I have collected in the area of disability and sport were cataloged somewhere so they could provide awareness and educational opportunities for students now and in perpetuity,” Steadward says, who received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Mount Royal in 2025.

Steadward has already donated material to other universities he has connections to.

“Those universities are all very well developed and I have always admired Mount Royal from when it was a college through when it became a university simply because of its great spirit of growth and looking for legacies,” he explains.

As a professor, Steadward has helped and supervised many Mount Royal students in their undergraduate studies, so that, too, was a consideration when donating these materials.

“Now that I look at it, it was the best decision that I made to support David as an academic and as a world leader in disability sport, and at a university that also showed me the same characteristics.”

Steadward points out how dedicated Legg is to connecting students to their local community.

“I also see at Mount Royal how David has taken his classes and worked with them beyond the boundaries of the classroom,” Steadward says.

Legg is also known for bringing in guest speakers, sometimes connecting virtually with people across the world.

“I hope his students are happy with and understand how lucky they are to have someone like him who brings in the kinds of expertise that he does,” Steadward says.

Processing the fonds

With the fonds now settled into their new home on the fourth floor of MRU’s Riddell Library and Learning Centre, students, employees and the general public are now welcome to visit and see them in person with an appointment.

However, part of the work done by the MRU Archives and Special Collections team is to preserve and make the fonds accessible to researchers.

Houston says a large donation like this requires a lot of processing.

“First, the archives team rehouses the donation into acid-free file folders and boxes and puts them into our climate-controlled storage area, which helps preserve them for the long term so that they will be available for future generations to consult,” Houston says.

The next step is to create a searchable and detailed finding of all of the files in the fonds.

“This allows researchers to discover the fonds online, search through its files, and learn more about Dr. Steadward and the subjects that his records relate to. We have already completed this work, so you can now browse and search the finding aid for the Robert Steadward Fonds.”

With the files now available digitally, researchers from around the world can access them.

“This gives MRU an opportunity to be a global leader. We house the founding president of the IPC’s personal archives. That’s it, we are the only ones who have that,” Legg says, adding that the collection builds on MRU’s legacy as a leader in adapted sport.