The Glory Hunters: Quarterbacks and Grey Cup journey
By Bob Mitchell
From the pen of Star veteran sports writer Bob Mitchell comes a fresh treat for the Grey Cup fan looking to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canada’s football classic. In The Glory Hunters, Mitchell tracks down seven of the Cup’s greatest living quarterbacks and interviews them as they recall their greatest triumphs. Interweaving these fresh interviews with profiles of the players’ careers and their Cup game highlights, Mitchell creates an unforgettable portrait of the stamina and grit displayed by the great athletes. Whether it’s Matt Dunigan playing with a broken collarbone in 1991 or Sonny Wade coping with a snowstorm in what became known as the Ice Bowl of 1977, these dramatic stories pay tribute to Canada’s gridiron game.
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By Bob Mitchell
From the pen of Star veteran sports writer Bob Mitchell comes a fresh treat for the Grey Cup fan looking to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canada’s football classic. In The Glory Hunters, Mitchell tracks down seven of the Cup’s greatest living quarterbacks and interviews them as they recall their greatest triumphs. Interweaving these fresh interviews with profiles of the players’ careers and their Cup game highlights, Mitchell creates an unforgettable portrait of the stamina and grit displayed by the great athletes. Whether it’s Matt Dunigan playing with a broken collarbone in 1991 or Sonny Wade coping with a snowstorm in what became known as the Ice Bowl of 1977, these dramatic stories pay tribute to Canada’s gridiron game.
When you subscribe to Star Dispatches, you'll receive new eRead titles, for only $1/week. That's only $1 per week, with a minimum subscription period of 1 month, to explore news and features from a new and unique perspective. Single copies of Star Dispatches eReads can be purchased for $2.99 at starstore.ca or itunes.ca/stardispatches
Excerpt:
The Glory Hunters: Quarterbacks and Grey Cup journey
Nothing was going to prevent Matt Dunigan from playing in the 1991 Grey Cup. Not even a collar bone broken a second time. The game was played under bone-chilling conditions — it was -16 C in Winnipeg on November 17. By the time it was over, Dunigan, then 30, could barely hoist the trophy. Shot full of local anesthetic, painkillers and adrenalin, Dunigan fought through excruciating pain to lead the Toronto Argonauts to a 36-21 victory over the Calgary Stampeders.
He completed just 12 of 29 passes for 142 yards, not great numbers by any normal measure, but it was one of the gutsiest performances by a quarterback in CFL history. It was also the defining moment of his 14-year CFL career. The three-time CFL all-star would later be inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame in 2006, having won two Grey Cups. He is still the only quarterback to lead four different teams to the championship.
For Toronto Argonaut fans, the 1991 season had been like no other. Going to an Argo game had become the in thing to do. The excitement began to build in the off-season when the team was purchased by hockey great Wayne Gretzky, movie star comedian John Candy and Bruce McNall, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings and the man who had brought the Great One to southern California from Edmonton. The price was 5 million dollars, big bucks back then.
Adam Rita had replaced Don Matthews as head coach. With a Hollywood atmosphere — The Blues Brothers, featuring actor Dan Aykroyd, performed at halftime during the season opener — Toronto averaged more than 38,000 fans per game in their SkyDome stadium and never lost a home game.
“It was a euphoric season. Toronto needed it. The CFL needed it. The league needed an influx of glitz,” Dunigan said, when interviewed recently for this book. “Gretzky, Candy and McNall also brought their passion. We had a euphoric ride of good times. “It was all paved by a kid from Notre Dame named Raghib ‘Rocket’ Ismail,” Dunigan continued. “Everywhere we went, the media all wanted to talk to him, and everybody else, a pack of allstars, were off to the side having a good time with no pressure, nobody asking us what our mindset was. Rocket deflected it all for us.”
Ismail was then a young American No.1 draft pick just out of the University of Notre Dame. He shocked the football world by choosing to play for the Argos over an NFL team. Born in Lakewood, Ohio, on Dec. 16, 1950, Dunigan grew up in Texas and played college football at Louisiana Tech. His accent is a combination of Texas and Louisiana drawls. Although he stayed in Canada after his retirement in 1996, after a series of head injuries ended his brilliant career, he and his family have since moved back to the Dallas area. From there, he commutes to Toronto weekly during the football season where he works as a CFL analyst and colour commentator for TSN.
All told, he suffered at least 12 diagnosed concussions — probably more — and the charismatic former CFL star, who once had his own barbeque cooking show on cable TV, still feels the lasting effects of the pounding his brain took while playing the game he dearly loved. To this day, he suffers mood swings, unsteadiness and memory loss.
Following his college career, Dunigan went on to play for six CFL teams, including the Birmingham Barracudas, during the CFL’s ill-fated expansion into the U.S. in the mid-1990s. But it was with the Argonauts that Dunigan’s legendary status as one of the game’s truly great quarterbacks was cemented.
Dunigan started the 1991 season as the team’s No.1 quarterback. But a leg injury knocked him out of the line-up early and he didn’t return until the end of August. It was the beginning of an injury-plagued season for Dunigan that included a pulled groin, hamstring and calf muscle. It was the second season in a row where injuries had hampered him. The year before, his first season with the Double Blue, he played in only eight games. Despite this, he still threw 17 touchdown strikes.
Three weeks after returning to the line-up in August, disaster struck again when he broke his collar bone in Calgary. For a second season he would play just eight games. Nonetheless, he threw 16 touchdowns and passed for 2,011 yards.
Incredibly, Dunigan returned from this injury in time for the eastern final, in which he led the Boatmen to a 43-2 win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. They played before a deafening, soldout crowd of more than 51,000 at the SkyDome, now the Rogers Centre. That game was like no other that Dunigan had ever played. Every player was determined to avenge the team’s loss in the eastern final the year before and, instead of the usual...
He completed just 12 of 29 passes for 142 yards, not great numbers by any normal measure, but it was one of the gutsiest performances by a quarterback in CFL history. It was also the defining moment of his 14-year CFL career. The three-time CFL all-star would later be inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame in 2006, having won two Grey Cups. He is still the only quarterback to lead four different teams to the championship.
For Toronto Argonaut fans, the 1991 season had been like no other. Going to an Argo game had become the in thing to do. The excitement began to build in the off-season when the team was purchased by hockey great Wayne Gretzky, movie star comedian John Candy and Bruce McNall, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings and the man who had brought the Great One to southern California from Edmonton. The price was 5 million dollars, big bucks back then.
Adam Rita had replaced Don Matthews as head coach. With a Hollywood atmosphere — The Blues Brothers, featuring actor Dan Aykroyd, performed at halftime during the season opener — Toronto averaged more than 38,000 fans per game in their SkyDome stadium and never lost a home game.
“It was a euphoric season. Toronto needed it. The CFL needed it. The league needed an influx of glitz,” Dunigan said, when interviewed recently for this book. “Gretzky, Candy and McNall also brought their passion. We had a euphoric ride of good times. “It was all paved by a kid from Notre Dame named Raghib ‘Rocket’ Ismail,” Dunigan continued. “Everywhere we went, the media all wanted to talk to him, and everybody else, a pack of allstars, were off to the side having a good time with no pressure, nobody asking us what our mindset was. Rocket deflected it all for us.”
Ismail was then a young American No.1 draft pick just out of the University of Notre Dame. He shocked the football world by choosing to play for the Argos over an NFL team. Born in Lakewood, Ohio, on Dec. 16, 1950, Dunigan grew up in Texas and played college football at Louisiana Tech. His accent is a combination of Texas and Louisiana drawls. Although he stayed in Canada after his retirement in 1996, after a series of head injuries ended his brilliant career, he and his family have since moved back to the Dallas area. From there, he commutes to Toronto weekly during the football season where he works as a CFL analyst and colour commentator for TSN.
All told, he suffered at least 12 diagnosed concussions — probably more — and the charismatic former CFL star, who once had his own barbeque cooking show on cable TV, still feels the lasting effects of the pounding his brain took while playing the game he dearly loved. To this day, he suffers mood swings, unsteadiness and memory loss.
Following his college career, Dunigan went on to play for six CFL teams, including the Birmingham Barracudas, during the CFL’s ill-fated expansion into the U.S. in the mid-1990s. But it was with the Argonauts that Dunigan’s legendary status as one of the game’s truly great quarterbacks was cemented.
Dunigan started the 1991 season as the team’s No.1 quarterback. But a leg injury knocked him out of the line-up early and he didn’t return until the end of August. It was the beginning of an injury-plagued season for Dunigan that included a pulled groin, hamstring and calf muscle. It was the second season in a row where injuries had hampered him. The year before, his first season with the Double Blue, he played in only eight games. Despite this, he still threw 17 touchdown strikes.
Three weeks after returning to the line-up in August, disaster struck again when he broke his collar bone in Calgary. For a second season he would play just eight games. Nonetheless, he threw 16 touchdowns and passed for 2,011 yards.
Incredibly, Dunigan returned from this injury in time for the eastern final, in which he led the Boatmen to a 43-2 win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. They played before a deafening, soldout crowd of more than 51,000 at the SkyDome, now the Rogers Centre. That game was like no other that Dunigan had ever played. Every player was determined to avenge the team’s loss in the eastern final the year before and, instead of the usual...
