BY MARC WEBER
Terry Fox's brother, Fred Fox, hopes Steve Nash's documentary will help raise awareness of Terry in the U.S. Photograph by: Jason Payne, Province Files, The Province Fred Fox is hopeful that Steve Nash can get Americans running and raising money in his brother Terry's name.
Nash, the two-time NBA MVP from Victoria, is producing a documentary for ESPN on the late Terry Fox, whose Marathon of Hope in 1980 inspired people worldwide and spawned annual Terry Fox Runs that have raised almost $450 million for cancer research.
"It's good for the [Fox] Foundation because it's an opportunity for us to break some doors down in the States," said Fred.
"We've had some runs in the States -- there's still a run in New York -- but the crew that Steve's working with out of New York, they didn't know anything about Terry until working with Steve. Once this airs, they said Americans are going to want to know more about Terry and they'll be all over it.
"Hopefully more money will be raised down there to fulfill Terry's dream of finding a cure for cancer."
The documentary is part of ESPN's 30/30 series -- 30 films from 30 different people for the network's 30th anniversary. Nash's is slated to run in April 2010.
Fox's story was dramatized in the HBO movie, "The Terry Fox Story," which ran in 1983. In 2005, CTV produced the T.V. movie "Terry," and author Douglas Coupland wrote a book of the same name.
Nash has consumed it all. He hopes he can bring something new to the audience, but it's more about telling Terry's story to a new market.
"The story speaks for itself," said Nash, who was in town all this week shooting interviews.
"Americans either don't know, or forgot, so it's an opportunity to tell the story to them."
International Terry Fox Runs have dwindled over the years, in large part due to a lack of corporate support, according to Fred. The Terry Fox Foundation has strict limits on sponsorship visibility -- no banners at run sites, for example.
"Terry felt that corporate sponsors should be doing it for the right reasons and we follow those policies today," he said.
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