Honoured Members Database

Born in Scotland 28,1918, Mary Pitts arrived in Winnipeg in 1919 and resided in Fort Rouge for six Decades. She credits Dan McWilliams at Lord Roberts School for getting interested in track and she ran with a group of exceptional women on the cinder track at Sargent Park with Little in the way of equipment or coaching.

At the Manitoba Girl's Track & Feild championships of 1934, Pitts set a provincial record of 15' 3″ in the junior broad jump. She was also part of the winning 400m junior relay team. Vince Leah described her as “a Kelvin high school grad who could run like the wind” in an article from the 1978  Winnipeg Tribune. In 1935 Pitts placed first in the intermediate broad jump, won the 60yard dash and once again won with the 400m relay team.

Mary Pitts travelled with seven other Manitoban women to Montreal to compete in the 1935 Canadian Women's Track & Feild Championships and competed in the 100m dash and the broad jump. A year later she went back to Montreal for the 1936 Olympic trials with fellow Manitobans Helen Ross, Evelyn Goshawk, Florence Merriman, Violet Montgomery. Ruby Palmer and 1984 Hall of Fame inducted member Robina Higgans. Pitts won gold in the intermediate broad jump at 15' 8 1/2″ and silver in the intermediate 100m dash. Pitts set a Women's Amateur Athletic Union record with a time of 12 and 2/5 seconds on June 24, 1936. Despite qualifying, she did not attend the 1936 Olympics in Berlin due to lack of funds.

In 1938 Mary Pitts qualified for the British Empire Games (now Known as the Commonwealth Games) in Sydney, Australia but came down with strep throat before boarding the ship. There was not another game until 1950 and Mary Pitts, now Dopson, had retired from competitive running. She did continue to coach athletics and was a strong advocate of women in sports.