Garcelon was born October 24, 1868, in Lewiston, Maine. He attended Bates College, where he played football and baseball and was a member of the track team. In 1893 and 1894, he played football at left halfback for the Boston Athletic Association (BAA).[2] He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1895. Garcelon coached track at Harvard in 1904 was the graduate manager of the Harvard Athletic Association from 1908 to 1913.[3] Around the same time, he was an athletics instructor at Roxbury Latin School in Boston and coached the track team at Portland High School in Portland, Maine. In 1933, Garcelon was elected president of the Boston Garden and became the head of the BAA in 1934. He died on July 4, 1949, at his home in Beverly, Massachusetts.[4]