Ken Evraire Named Ottawa Sooners (Semi-Pro) Head Coach

How about that? Evraire did it for the Invaders as a start up organization, now he'll do it for one that's been established for decades.

I'd be curious to know what's being said around the Northern Football Conference.

It's good to see Evraire this invested in the local football scene still. When people discuss the poor management of the Ottawa Rough Riders, you invariably hear about drafting a dead dude and Dexter Manley. But Evraire's handling, as a rising star player, was deplorable and discouraging from a fan's perspective.  Here is his own recollection of the event.

My arrival was simply a settling of accounts with the Ottawa Rough Riders and head coach Steve Goldman. The Riders (had) gone out and spent a lot of money on free agents (Glenn Kulka, David Williams, John Mandarich, Tony Cherry) and the (league) GMs were not tickled to say the least. I had suffered a slight tear in my quad and as luck would have it the Riders tried to hide me by putting me on waivers. No team would want damaged goods or at least that is what the Riders brass thought. With a blink of an eye and a call to the league office, I was claimed by Hamilton.

More of that here.

So yeah. At the time (I don't believe these rules exist anymore) you could recall a player from waivers once...but not twice. The Rough Riders "brain trust" back then, incompetent asses that they were, recalled Evraire once but were unable to do so the second time they put him on waivers so while they thought they were being clever and evaluating interest in him, they accidentally gave him away for nothing.

In his second season with Hamilton (1992), Evraire would snatch 61 passes for 1081 yards and three touchdowns and take the trophy for most outstanding Canadian in the East.

Oops?

Some Rough Rider bungles have become legendary. Those that haven't aren't any less heinous. While defending this fan base prior to the RedBlacks finally becoming a reality, I used to point to the fact that the organization punched itself in the sack for 15 years and averaged 5 wins a season during that period yet still had a hardcore following. That's not a negative, that's an incredible positive that manifested itself when a competent organization was finally delivered to the city.