2024, April 10th: "REDBLACKS hire Greg Marshall as Defensive Line Coach"

OTTAWA - The Ottawa REDBLACKS announced, today, that they have hired longtime CFL coach, and Ottawa Rough Riders great Greg Marshall as the team's Defensive Line Coach, ahead of the 2024 season. 

A native of Beverly, Massachusetts, Marshall most recently served as Head Coach at the University of Toronto from 2018 to 2023, and in 2021, guided the team to the postseason for the first time since 1995. Prior to his time with the Varsity Blues, the 67-year-old spent three years as Defensive Coordinator at Queen's.

Marshall is no stranger to the CFL coaching ranks, breaking into the league in 1994 as Defensive Line Coach of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He added a Defensive Coordinator title in 1996, before moving on to occupy the same two posts for Edmonton from 2000 to 2004. In 2005, Marshall served as Assistant Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator of the Ottawa Renegades, before running the defence and linebackers for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 2006 to 2008. He made his way to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2009, working as Assistant Head Coach, Defensive Coordinator, and Linebackers Coach for two seasons, before being hired as Head Coach of the Roughriders ahead of the the 2011 season.

As a player, Marshall enjoyed a decorated nine-season career as a defensive end in the CFL, after suiting up in two games with the NFL's Baltimore Colts. He spent his entire career north of the border in the nation's capital, earning CFL East All-Star honours from 1981 to 1984, and was named a CFL All-Star in 1981, and 1983, winning Most Outstanding Defensive Player in the latter year. He was honoured with a spot on the RNation Legacy Wall at TD Place in 2023.

Marshall was drafted in the seventh round, 186th overall, by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1978 NFL Draft, after playing his collegiate football at Oregon State.

Marshall was on radio the night he was hired and during the interview casually wondered if he was the first person to be involved with all three Ottawa pro football teams. 

It kind of brought a chuckle because he played with Joe Paopao in 1987 and was on Paopao's coaching staff with the Renegades. Paopao was also with the REDBLACKS in 2019. Goes to show that as fans, we sometimes have better recollection of these matters than players/coaches do. 

I'd actually meant to share content about Marshall's playing days last year when he was added to the stadium's wall of fame, but admittedly it fell off my radar.

I did find the image below from a November 1983 Ottawa Citizen. Neat to see some other familiar faces on there.  

Unless I have yet to locate it, the reaction to Marshall winning the Most Outstanding Defensive Player award was rather subdued. It seemed to consist of a paragraph or two in articles celebrating the group as whole.

Since we're talking about coaches, let's look at a couple of new faces added to the staff when it was  announces in mid-February.

Pat Perles (OL) returns to the CFL, after having previously worked as the Offensive Line Coach in Saskatchewan (1994-96), Winnipeg (1997), and Hamilton (1998-1999), winning a Grey Cup in his final year with the Ti-Cats. Perles was also a Defensive Assistant with the Los Angeles Rams from 1992-1993, and in 2009 joined the Kansas City Chiefs as a Defensive Quality Control Coach, before working as their Assistant Offensive Line Coach in 2010, and 2011. He has also spent time on the NCAA circuit, previously coaching at Toledo, North Dakota State, Syracuse, and Michigan State. 

Deion Melvin (LBs) joins the REDBLACKS for his first season with the club after spending the last four years as Linebackers Coach with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Prior to coming north of the border, Melvin’s coaching career began at East Aurora where he worked as a graduate assistant in the early 1990s. He would go on to coach at Western Illinois (1993 to 1998), Missouri State (1999 to 2005), Georgia Southern (2006), Bowling Green (2007 and 2008), Ball State (2009 and 2010) and Lindenwood University (2011 to 2016), before returning for a second stint at Western Illinois (2017 to 2019). In a coaching career that spans 30 years, Melvin has gained experience working with players in all three phases of the game.

Alex Suber also returns to the fold. 

Alex Suber is back for his fourth season with the REDBLACKS, but first since 2022, after spending the 2023 season as Cornerbacks Coach at Middle Tennessee State. The move followed four years in the nation's capital, where Suber served as Defensive Backs Coach from 2019 until 2022, when he took on the role of Receivers Coach. Before joining the REDBLACKS, Suber coached receivers at Murray State University, after spending time as Lyon College’s defensive coordinator. Suber wrapped-up his CFL playing career with 65 games played and 254 defensive tackles.

This, of course, is in addition to naming Tommy Condell offensive coordinator.

1980, Aug. 18th: "Airborne Sooners Blank Burlington"

Oct 28th, 1989: "Gee-Gees Battle Past Stingers"

Oct 29th, 1983: "Sooners Beat Montreal to Make National Final"

The image below is of Peppi LaRiccia (left) and George Gariepy according to the accompanying caption which I didn't not copy. 

1982: Laurentian 19, Ridgemont 07

The 1982 Carleton Board championship was posted earlier today, here's the Ottawa Board championship in which Laurentian earned the right to meet J.S. Woodsworth for the city crown.

1982: J.S. Woodsworth 37, Confederation 12

The high school football page continues to grow as the eventual champions' regular season scores are added when found, as are all playoff results. 1982 is getting the attention this evening.

Many game summaries are quite brief, little more than a sentence or two, but the Carleton board championship warranted a bit more attention and detail. Here it is below. 

May 19th, 1988: West Defeats East in the OMFL Grads Game

I hit a wall at 1988 while gathering results for the Athletes In Action high school senior game some months ago. Being that I've been collecting scores from right around that time period for a bunch of other teams, I thought I would give it another try.

I don't know how I missed the 1988 and 1989 game articles the first time. The Citizen had full-page ads for them!

In truth, I think it's because the emphasis on Athletes In Action is not present by then. Whatever the cause, the recaps for those two contests are now included on the "AIA Game" page above. The Citizen was a very supportive partner of this endeavour for a few years. 

In tracking those down, I found something completely unexpected; a Midget All-Star game in 1988 featuring players from the four Ottawa teams competing at that level at the time.

The following year, the teams went with Red / White identification rather than a regional one.

Coverage of the Midget level gets very spotty as we enter the 1990s but I'll make a point to continue looking for summaries of these all-star games played in the spring.

Nov 9th, 1985: Carleton 40, Bishop's 20

The gathering of Rough Riders results and the occasional game-summarizing articles continues with the 1984 and 1985 seasons having recently been added.

There isn't much glory to share from either season but in going over those years again, I took the time to copy some summaries from other teams, mostly the Sooners and the Carleton Ravens, both of which were quite successful during that spell. 

I want to focus on Carleton in particular at this time. They won two playoff games in 1985 before bowing to Calgary in a national championship semi-final. It occurred to me that this had to be the first time they recorded two playoff victories in a season in the school's football history (dating back to 1945) because, to be blunt, they'd have very few successful seasons to that point.

Then a paragraph in the article below added a little focus. Read on and we'll resume on the other side.

...First playoff victory since he was the team's head coach starting in 1959.

I initially misunderstood the context there. Harris, at bottom left, is not saying that Carleton last won a playoff game in 1959. That would be inaccurate, the team was winless that year. 

Rather, Harris is stating that he's not aware of a playoff victory from that starting point. Nor should he be, there weren't any.

So I looked at prior years. I still came up empty. It appears, then, that the Ravens literally did not win a playoff game in the first 50 years of their existence. Wikipedia, for what it's worth, appears to support this.

Everyone in Ottawa and the surrounding areas had Ravens fever as the Carleton team headed to Calgary to face the Dinosaurs in the Western Bowl (Vanier Cup semi-final). In -32C weather, the Ravens season came to an end with a 56-14 win for the Calgary Dinosaurs. However, all was not lost - the Ravens enjoyed the best season in the history of the club. They were the first to win a playoff game as well as a league championship, and the first to enter the Final Four.

I guess that never jumped out at me before, even as I (sporadically, in my defense) recorded their results one season at a time. Sure, they weren't always great. They weren't always putrid, either. They had the occasional burst of competence interspersed in there.

Unless I'm mistaken then, Carleton won their first playoff game in 1985 and their last in 1986. But that last one was against uOttawa so if any Ravens fans get chirped about this fact, it'll likely be by a Gee-Gees supporter and you have this to throw back at them.

July 8th, 1983: Ottawa Rough Riders 26 @ Winnipeg Blue Bombers 25

I am adding the 1983 Rough Riders results today as well as whatever other goodies I happen to come across for other teams in the area.

That season opened with a last-minute victory in Winnipeg before a boatload of consecutive losses so I thought that specific game warranted a little extra attention. Take it away, Tom Casey!

The summary of that season on the "Rough Riders 1961+" page also now includes the article about the 1983 team's second victory, also on the road, against the Warren Moon-led Edmonton Eskimos. 

Oct 22nd, 1988: Calgary Stampeders 03 @ Ottawa Rough Riders 19

The Ottawa REDBLACKS seem to not tire of embarrassing themselves of late. They made sure to not squander another opportunity to do so last night in losing 24-07 to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in front of a rain-drenched home crowd, scoring zero points on offence while giving up six when Dominique Davis had an interception returned for a score.

The loss marked 11 in a row at home for the Redblacks. The record for consecutive home losses is held by none other than, naturally, the Ottawa Rough Riders! 

The 1987 team started the season 2-1. The defeated Toronto at home 34-27 on July 11th and things were looking up following a 3-14-1 record in 1986. They returned to their old ways though and won only one more game the rest of the way, in Saskatchewan, to end the year 3-15. 

Then came...Super Season 88!! The team cranked up the hype, being hosts of the Grey Cup game that year.

Then they promptly crapped their pants (figuratively). They won in Winnipeg early in the season then carrying a 1-14 record into their home contest against Calgary, they finally managed another victory, their first since that game against the Argos in July of the previous year. The summary of that game awaits you below.

The article above was written by Wayne Scanlan. 

I don't know how accurate the Wikipedia entry for CFL team records is, but if that page is to be believed, Ottawa owns the second-longest streak of home losses as well. The 1928 to 1932 Rough Riders lost 12 straight. Next Tuesday, the Redblacks could tie that total as they work their way to the top spot.

Yikes.

Just Added: 1988 Bootleggers Game Summaries

Four newspaper articles have been added to the Bootleggers page, including the one below, all recapping games from the 1988 season. There have been one or two very brief ones (as they tended to be at the time, frustratingly) added for the 1992 season as well.

Coincidentally, they are all against one of two teams; either the Binghamton Jets or the Watertown Red & Black. Not surprisingly, I think all but one mentions a significant contribution by receiver Jamie Straw. 😉

Just Added: 1988 Ottawa Bootleggers Playoff Game Summaries

This was the result of finding out that the Northern Football Conference had cancelled their 2021 season already. From memory, I thought they started later in the year so I hadn't really taken the time to check until yesterday but sure enough, they made the announcement in late March, on Facebook.

Too bad, but understandable at this point. Hopefully they manage to return next year.

In the meantime, I copied the semi-pro Sooners results from 2018 but with that level of football on the brain, I tracked down the two Bootleggers playoff victories from 1988, their inaugural season.  

Strangely, the first game received better coverage than the second. Never mind that their contest  against Syracuse could put them in the league's championship game in their first season, it was a much more closely fought battle than the previous one and a come-from-behind victory with a last-second finish. 

The Bootleggers lost to Scranton the following weekend.

Since we were talking about the NFC's season cancellation earlier, the league has yet to make anything public as far as I can see, but the Jr. Riders have stated that the Quebec Major Junior Football League have also pulled the plug on the 2021 season. 

That one worries me. It had only five clubs, three of which were well established (Ottawa, Chateauguay, South Shore) and two that had only entered the league in 2019.

I can't help but question the league's viability at this point. They've played with four clubs several times before, and as recently as 2018, so I wonder if perhaps they had already determined that they weren't going to be able to reach that number for 2021.

The season normally only starts in mid-August.  Its cancellation more four months before its usual scheduled start, with no apparent attempt to delay or shorten it, is a little worrisome to me. I've seen it the timing questioned on social media without response.

I very much hope to see them back in 2022 or failing that, that the Jr Riders are able to join the Ontario Football Conference and resume their in-town rivalry with the Sooners.

October 20th, 1989: "Baird Caps Record Year"

In the process of adding the Gee-Gees' 1989 results to their page, I came across the following milestone for one hall-of-famer-to-be.

Gee-Gees QB Cam Baird receives plaque for setting OQIFC season scoring mark from Rider Chris Skinner who had the old standard while at Bishop's.

And Baird did it rather convincingly.

As stated above, the team was 5-2 that year. They would go on to defeat Concordia in the playoffs, their first post-season victory since 1980, I believe. They would lose the following weekend to Queen's, the  team that handed them their two regular season defeats that season and their playoff exit in 1988. 

As for Baird specifically, he was named the conference's most valuable player that year and inducted into the Gee-Gees hall of fame in 2009. 

Just Added: The 1987 & 1988 Panda Games

It was difficult to include while cropping but the headline to this article was "Defence Carries Ravens to Victory in Panda Game".

The "related story" that is referred to at the end is not about the game but the events surrounding it. A railing on the north side of the stands gave way at half time causing a number of people to fall more than 12 feet onto the concrete below. Roughly 30 people were sent to the hospital and there was some thought that the Panda Game should be shelved.

Attendance dipped from 17,000 or so to 1,500 in 1988 for a game held on Thanks giving Monday. It would take a few years for the game to restore its place on the football landscape.

1989: The Ottawa Bootleggers Playoff Run

Those of us who attended the 1989 North American Minor League Football Alliance championship game take a certain amount of pride in the fact that we did not perish that day but tend to forget what it took for the Ottawa Bootleggers to host that game in first place.

So with that in mind, we present to you summaries of the two playoff games the 'leggers had to win to earn the right to play for that crown in -15C temperatures during a snow storm. Please note that the weather wasn't a hell of a lot better for those two games either, as each article will point out.

The stated date reflects when the summary appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, not "game day".

Nov 20th: 

Nov 25th:

Oct 25th, 1985: Golden Gaels 17 @ Gee-Gees 20

Game summaries posted here tend to be reserved for championship or playoff contests but this one holds a different type of significance.

A couple of weekends ago, I wrote a post about the rapid decline of the University of Ottawa program in 1983 following an undefeated regular season the previous year. They were unable to secure a single victory throughout 1983 and 1984 until finally landing one in the second-to-last game of 1985. This is the game in which that run of futility finally came to an end.

They won the following game as well (against McGill) and actually had a chance at a playoff spot dependent on Carleton winning its last game but that did not come to pass. Still, after a dismal couple of seasons the arrow was pointing up again. 

The Strange, Strange 1983 Ottawa U. Gee-Gees Season

Continuing to add game results, I decided today to spend a bit of time on the Gee-Gees.

Unfortunately, I'd reached a difficult point in the team's history. I knew that their 1983 and 1984 seasons were rather...underwhelming, but didn't fully grasp the speed at which they collapsed. 

They were coming off a 7-0 regular season (but first-round playoff exit) in 1982. That team's coach, Joe Moss, was hired by the Argos in February of 1983 and replaced by Jim Clark early the following month.

Let's cut to a quote from the new head coach from just prior to the start of the season. 

That pass-heavy system was the run and shoot, the so-called "offense of the future" that you no longer read about now that we're in the future. My recollection of it at the time, in the NFL at least, is that teams always struggled with it early. Let's bear that in mind as we embark this downward spiral.

The Gee-Gees travelled to Concordia in week one and were upended by the Stingers. They threw at least three interceptions in a 33-10 loss. 

That would be the rule, not the exception. They lost their home opener to Bishop's the following week by a score of 43-21, a game after which Clark called out his defensive veterans publicly, then threw a staggering seven interceptions at McGill a week after that.

But Carleton would be next, so no doubt the guys would get up for that one. And perhaps a QB change will help. Let's hear from coach Clark again.

Sure, it can't be the system, it must be everyone playing it incorrectly. Another thing about the run and shoot is that those who believed in it rode it to death. Well, maybe Sommerville will have better success with it. 

The Gee-Gees lost to their crosstown rivals 28-23.

The team then set a dubious mark by finding a way to have negative points in the standings. 

Imagine if they didn't win a game the rest of the year and ended with -2 points in the standings? It would be pretty damn hard to ever lose THAT spot in history. Who the hell would ever have -3? How would you even go about achieving that penalty? Would you have to murder someone at midfield?

But the Gee-Gees found an innovative way to avoid having that black spot on their record forevermore. 

First, they hosted Queen's and after four straight losses, managed a tie in that match-up. Things were looking up!

Then the following week, they travelled to play Queen's again and...tied that game too!

And just like that, they were back to zero points in the standings. And it was actually an improvement! 

Naturally, such a miserable season could only end with a loss in the Panda Game. But to make it a touch more painful, let's blow a three-TD lead in doing so. 

Well, at least things could only get better after such a miserable season, right?

No. The Gee-Gees would go 0-7 in 1984 so those two ties in 1983 would seem like high points by comparison.

But 1983 wasn't all bad. Some guys earned individual recognition. 

U. of O. wouldn't crack a .500 record again until 1988 with Jim Daley at the helm. I might just rush my way through this soft spot in their history.