Bo Don’t Know Scarbrough… Toronto’s Scarborough, that is
By Chris Mckee
The star running back for the Alabama Crimson Tide is making the name Scarbrough famous again. However, somebody needs to tell Bo that he doesn’t know Scarborough the way we do in the 6ix.
Bo Scarbrough is a running back for the Alabama Crimson Tide who has achieved recent stardom and is now laying claim to the brand and the name Scarbrough.
However, somebody needs to tell Bo… he don’t know the real Scarborough.
Many of our American counterparts in Alabama are likely oblivious to the connection of the name Scarborough and the history of one of Canada’s most culturally diverse areas and it’s most infamous borough.
Bo Scarbrough has a very bright future ahead of him, but he still isn’t representing the Scarborough brand in the same manner as these celebrities:
Here are the top 5 people “repping Scarborough.”
5) The Weeknd: The Grammy award winning pop star was born and raised in Scarborough and attended Birchmount Collegiate deep in the heart of Scarborough. He may be the biggest pop star in the world right now, but before he was a star boy, we knew him as Abel Tesfaye from the east end of the borough.
4) Ben Johnson: The one time world’s fastest man was Jamaican born, but was raised in Scarborough. He helped put Scarborough on the world-wide map in the mid to late 80s with his dominance of the track and field world.
If you’re from Scarborough, you still love Ben, especially after the release of the ESPN 30 for 30 “9.79” that showed that all but one of the sprinters in the 1988 Olympic final tested positive for steroids at some point in their career following that race.
3) The Barenaked Ladies: They’ve won a bunch of Juno Awards and have been Grammy nominated and sold millions of albums after emerging from the high schools of Scarborough (Woburn & Sir Oliver Mowat).
BNL were one of the first bands or celebrities to really celebrate their Scarborough upbringing, which was highlighted by their 1991 music video “Lover’s in a dangerous time,” which shows them driving around Scarborough in the back of a pick-up truck.
2) Mike Myers: Myers in so entrenched in Scarborough folklore that they named a street after him. The SNL alum was Scarborough born and raised and showcased to the world the true Scarborough lifestyle of the 1970s and 80s through his Wayne Campbell character in the Wayne’s World movies. If you grew up in Scarborough back then, you knew a dozen different guys who looked and acted exactly like Wayne. Party on!
1) Maestro Fresh Wes: Wes may not be as world-wide famous as the others on this list, but nobody has put Scarborough on the map the way Maestro did. Long before Drake was rapping about his “real ones past Kennedy road,” Maestro was rapping about Kennedy Station and L’Amoreaux Collegiate on his 1989 classic album “Symphony in Effect.”
Wes wrote the lyric that cemented his status as the King of Scarborough when he said, “I put the scar in the borough.”
Next: NCAA Champions Ohio State Play McMaster
Editor’s note: the writer of this article is Scarborough born and raised and has the flag of Scarborough tattooed on his arm.