McADAM o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2007-01-05 published
KENNEDY,
Archie
William
Peacefully at Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital on Thursday,
January 4th, 2007, Archie William
KENNEDY of Ailsa Craig, Ontario
in his 90th year. Beloved husband of the late Viola May
(EEDY)
KENNEDY (2001.) Dear father of Elaine and Don
STEBBINS of Hensall,
Jean and Allen
AMOS,
Shirley and Lorne
MacGREGOR and Audrey
McADAM
all of Ailsa Craig. Dearly loved grandfather of Bill and Diane
STEBBINS, Kim
APPS (Mike), Jeff
AMOS (Jody), Cathy
TALBOT (Brian),
Angela AMOS (Brandon), Amanda
AMOS (Adrian), Tim
MacGREGOR (Trina),
Ian MacGREGOR (Susan), Pam
KACZMARCZYK (Kevin) and Tammy
GREGORY
(Scott) and 15 great-grandchildren. Dear brother of Elaine
SANDERSON
of London. Predeceased by brothers Ferg, Colin and Dave. Resting
at the T. Stephenson and son Funeral Home, Ailsa Craig, where
the funeral service will be held on Sunday, January 7th, at 3 p.m.
with Rev. Kate
BALLAGH-
STEEPER officiating. Interment Nairn Cemetery.
Visitation 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Saturday. A Masonic Service under
the auspices of Craig Lodge #574 will be held on Saturday evening
at 6: 30 p.m. Donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of
Ontario or the charity of choice would be appreciated. A tree
will be planted in memory of Mr. Archie
KENNEDY.
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McADAM o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-10-18 published
MacADAM,
Hugh
Gerald
Husband, father, lawyer, Cape Bretoner, decorated solder. Born
February 3, 1922, in Margaree Harbour, Nova Scotia Died August
2 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, of heart failure, aged 85.
By Margaret
MacADAM,
Page
L12
In the last years of his life, Gerald
MacADAM puzzled about the
meaning of his existence and the ways in which luck and opportunity
shaped his life.
Born in 1922, the 12th (and youngest child) of Colin Francis
and Annie
(CHISHOLM)
MacADAM,
Gerald spent his childhood in the
town of Margaree Harbour in Cape Breton.
In his life, there was his education (and high jinks) at St. Francis
Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and yet he graduated
summa cum laude; fighting (and high jinks) in Europe during the
Second World War as a lieutenant in the army; law school (and
high jinks) at Dalhousie University.
Gerald was also with the legal department at Algoma Steel Inc.,
and did years of volunteer work for organizations in Sault Ste. Marie.
He was married to Amelda
MacKINNON for 52 years and was a devoted
father to his son, Donald.
Gerald was first and foremost a Cape Bretoner. To him that meant
a man fortunate to have been born on the Island and not on the
mainland (the disparaging term for the rest of Nova Scotia).
Second, Gerald was a scholar in the tradition of many of his
highland forebears. For him, the centre of his home was his library
he read extensively about history, politics, philosophy and religion.
He loved nothing better than having a "discussion" with a visitor
about his experiences at university, in the army, working with
Sir James Dunn at Algoma Steel Inc., or his volunteer work with
the Grey Sisters.
Over a glass of scotch, the visitor would be regaled with funny
stories.
One of his best was about trying to move an unauthorized horse
during a military convoy, having the horse trailer break down
on a bridge, which held up the entire operation, being berated
by the commanding officer, and giving his name as Donald MacDonald,
knowing that there were so many Donald MacDonalds in the army
that no one would be held responsible.
Perhaps inevitably, Gerald was a seeker. He marvelled that he
survived a war when so many didn't and he struggled with the
difficulties that shape all our lives. He had an inquiring mind
and sought meaning in Buddhism.
It was his wish that his friend, Rev. Francis Reid, who had been
an altar boy at his wedding, officiate at his funeral. Those
who knew him understood that his journey was well done.
Margaret MacADAM is Gerald's niece.
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McADAM o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-12-21 published
Famous for his Canadian Football League 'sleeper play,' he became
Ottawa's local hero
In November, 1960, he executed an unusual and dangerous manoeuvre
that put the Rough Riders on the road to the Grey Cup. He turned
down two National Football League teams and later entered politics
By Ron CSILLAG,
Special to The Globe and Mail, Page S6
November 20, 1960, Toronto's Exhibition Stadium. The Canadian
Football League's Eastern Conference final was being played,
with the Argonauts pitted against the Ottawa Rough Riders. It
was a two-game affair, with the point total to decide the outcome.
Ottawa had won the first game, 33-21, but in the second, they
were trailing 20-14 in the fourth quarter. One more Toronto touchdown
would send the Argos to the Grey Cup.
Then came a manoeuvre so outrageous, it was actually banned:
the famous "sleeper play," in which Ottawa quarterback Ron Lancaster
spotted tight end Bob
SIMPSON during a player exchange that no
one else noticed, least of all the Toronto defence.
Only Mr. Lancaster, who went on to become a Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation sports announcer and Canadian Football League head
coach, can call it: "It was kind of crazy," he recalled in a
telephone interview from Hamilton. "We were in our own end. Toronto
was winning. If they score again, they're gonna beat us, so we
need to move the football.
"We ran a play, and getting up off the field, heading back to
the huddle, I ain't got nothing to do. So I'm just kind of looking
around, and Bobby's walking to the sidelines. He just sort of
walked. He wasn't drawing attention to himself. It was a spontaneous
thing. He just kind of had his head down, his hands on his hips,
just kind of walking to the sidelines - and he stopped. Didn't
do anything elaborate. Just kind of blended in.
"And I look at him and he gives me this sign. He just stands
there. So I hurry up and tell 'em to snap the ball. I throw it
to him and he runs [from] somewhere around our 25 down to their
25. Next play, we run it down to the 1, put it in the end zone
and scored, beat 'em 21-20, won the East and went to the Grey
Cup and won it."
It was a jaw-dropping play for the fans, the most famous sleeper
play ever executed in the Canadian Football League - and also
the last. The league outlawed it immediately. But it was typical
of the kind of guy Mr.
SIMPSON was: brash, bold, cheeky, fun.
A swift runner with huge, glue-like hands and impressive playing
numbers, he "was as great an all-around athlete as you're going
to find," Mr. Lancaster said. But he was always remembered for
that play.
"Over the years, there must have been a quarter of a million
fans who came up to me and said they were in Lansdowne Park [in
Ottawa] and saw the sleeper play," Mr.
SIMPSON once told his
friend Pat
MacADAM, a sports columnist for the Ottawa Sun. "I
didn't have the heart to tell them the game was played in Toronto."
A native of Windsor, Ontario, Mr.
SIMPSON was a year old when
his father walked out on his mother. At Patterson Collegiate
and later Assumption College, now federated with the University
of Windsor, he excelled at basketball, football and track, running
the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat. He played on two provincial
championship basketball teams in high school before joining the
famed Tillsonburg Livingstons.
He was tearing up the field for the Windsor Rockets of the Ontario
Rugby Football Union when the Rough Riders snapped him up in
1950. But he was granted leave to play for Canada's basketball
team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. He played five games but
Canada was eliminated.
In his 12-year Canadian Football League career, he caught 274 passes,
including a single-season career-high 47 in 1956, for a total
of 6,034 yards. He scored 65 touchdowns - 12 of them defensive.
The record stood until Terry Evanshan broke it in 1975. He set
another record for most yards receiving in a game (258) in a
1956 contest against Toronto.
He was an Eastern division all-star eight times at four different
positions - end, flying wing, running back and defensive back
- and was a three-time nominee for the Schenley Award given to
the league's most outstanding Canadian. He was runner-up in 1956,
the year he was also nominated as the Canadian Football League's
most outstanding player.
Mr. SIMPSON was inducted into the Canadian Football League Hall
of Fame in 1976, the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame in 1998 and the
Windsor-Essex Sports Hall of Fame the same year.
With his skills on both sides of the line and his leadership
as co-captain (with Kaye Vaughan), Ottawa won Grey Cups in 1951 and
"He had these great big hands," remembered George Brancato, who
played with Mr.
SIMPSON in Ottawa and against him in Montreal.
"He could catch the ball. He had a real soft touch. He knew the
game so well. And he loved life. He enjoyed himself all the time."
He also famously turned down two offers from National Football
League teams in the United States. The first came from the New
York
Giants, who noticed Mr.
SIMPSON after they became the first
National Football League team to play outside the U.S. on August
12, 1950, when they met Ottawa in a preseason exhibition game
at Lansdowne Park. New York won 27-6 and wined and dined Mr.
SIMPSON
- unheard of for a Canadian player at the time.
The story, according to Mr.
MacADAM, is that he listened to his
mother, who said to him: "Do you want to be a little fish in
a big pond?" and turned down the Giants. Besides, the money wasn't
nearly as good as he was making in the Canadian Football League.
At his peak, Mr.
SIMPSON probably earned $10,000 a year.
Around the same time, he turned down an offer from the Baltimore
Colts.
Ottawa sportswriter Earl
McRAE waxed, "Imagine: Johnny
Unitas passing to Bob
SIMPSON."
Mr. SIMPSON's career ended in 1962 after a car accident with
a tractor that dislocated his already bashed-up hip. After retirement,
he was elected to Ottawa City Council, representing Wellington
Ward for two terms. "It was right after the Grey Cup in 1960 and
he was the hero," retired sportswriter Gerry Redmond told The
Windsor Star. "He could have been elected prime minister."
He went on to a variety of occupations. He owned a cleaning company
for a time, coached a local high-school football team and worked
in the Rough Riders head office as a public relations man. He
bought the Locanda restaurant on Laurier Avenue from Paul Anka's
family. "It was a great watering hole and restaurant but Bobby
overestimated Ottawa nightlife," Mr. MacAdam wrote in the Ottawa
Sun. He also "tore up one too many of his Friends' bar tabs."
He opened a night spot, Club 70, his Ottawa jersey number, but
it stayed empty.
Still, he never lost his outsized zest for life. "Any time Bobby
SIMPSON was around, you heard him," Mr. Lancaster said. "He was
just naturally loud. He was really a fun person to be around.
If you were around him, I guarantee you're going to have a good
time."
Mr. MacADAM had similar memories: "You could hear him coming
a block away. Make that two blocks. You knew you were not going
to receive a handshake. His standard greeting was a slap across
the back that threatened to separate your shoulder blades. A crushing
bear hug was an automatic. Bobby
SIMPSON didn't just fill a room
he lit it up with his infectious good humour."
He and a group of rambunctious beer-drinking buddies were institutions
at the Belle Claire Hotel's bar and, when it closed, the Churchill
Arms on Carling Avenue.
"Good-natured insults flew fast and furious and Bobby was the
butt of a few memorable ones," Mr.
MacADAM wrote. "But he had
a good sense of humour and gave as good as he received."
As with many former athletes his weight ballooned, to 270 pounds.
When a doctor advised that he drop to 180, Mr. Brancato exclaimed:
"His bones weigh 180 pounds!"
One day, Mr.
SIMPSON walked into the Arms, grinning like a Cheshire
cat.
As Mr. MacADAM related, "he told us the greatest honour he had
ever received" was bestowed on him at the annual Easter Seals
"Timmy" event for disabled children at Maple Leaf Gardens. Traditionally,
"Timmy" was carried from the back of the hall to a platform by
wrestler (Whipper) Billy Watson. But Mr. Watson was recovering
from surgery and the honour fell to Mr.
SIMPSON.
"I never felt so proud or so humble," Mr.
SIMPSON said.
For 14 years, he worked as a clerk at various liquor stores in
Ottawa. In 2000, Ottawa sports fans celebrated an event billed
as "No. 70 turns 70."
Did he miss playing? "Every day," said his wife, Mary. "He would
have paid them to play. I don't think he ever found anything
really to replace that. He just loved it."
That his glory days were long past never seemed to get him down,
though. In fact, there was a Dixieland band at his funeral, playing
You Gotta Be a Football Hero.
Robert Lee
SIMPSON was born April 20, 1930, in Windsor, Ontario
He died of cancer on November 27, 2007, in Ottawa. He was 77.
He leaves his wife, Mary, daughters Lynn and Mary Leigh, sons
Rob, Gary and Mark, and seven grandchildren.
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McADAMS o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-09-19 published
McADAMS,
William
Francis
Henderson "
Bill"
Peacefully, at The Guelph General Hospital, in his 81st year
on Sunday, September 16, 2007. Bill was the beloved husband of
the late Nancy (2001.) Dear father of Sandra
PARNELL
(Terry,)
Linda BYMA (Sid), Ian (Darlene) and Bruce (Nancy). Proud Papa
of Laura, Mike, Rob, Jeff, Steve, Lindsay, Jackie, Michelle,
Benjamin and Wyatt and Great Papa of Mikaela, Brianna and Carly.
Bill was a loyal member of Fleetair Arm 143 Squad, 13 E.F.T.S.
Saint_John's, Québec, as well as the Col. John McCrae Branch 234
Royal Canadian Legion and former Guelph City Councillor. Friends
may call at the Gilchrist Chapel - McIntyre and Wilkie Funeral
Home, One Delhi Street, Guelph (from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Friday).
Legion Service at 4: 00 p.m. Friday. Funeral Service at the Gilchrist
Chapel on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 1: 00 p.m. with Pastor
John VANDERSTOEP officiating. Cremation Woodlawn Memorial Park.
Memorial contributions to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of
Ontario would be appreciated. A reception will follow in the
Trillium Room of the Funeral Home. We invite you to leave your
memories and donations online at: www.gilchristchapel.com
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