Dan Ralph
THE CANADIAN PRESS

To many, he’ll forever be remembered as the Little General, a diminutive quarterback with a tenacious resolve who led the Saskatchewan Roughriders to their first-ever Grey Cup title and became one of the most prolific passers in CFL history.

But it was Ron Lancaster’s gift of the gab, approachable nature and willingness to always swap stories that made him immensely popular with fans and an unofficial CFL goodwill ambassador, sometimes at the expense of his teammates.

“We’d always have to grab him by the neck and put him on the bus, otherwise we would’ve been sitting there for three years (talking to people),” said George Reed, the Riders’ legendary fullback. “He had that way of really mingling with the people and giving them his time and talking to them.

“He just had a way with people and people loved to talk to him. He always had time.”

Lancaster died Thursday at the age of 69. His death came just over a month after he announced he was being treated for lung cancer.

“The key note is he had time for everybody and everybody had equal importance in his mind,” said Hugh Campbell, a teammate of Lancaster’s in Regina who served as Edmonton’s president when Lancaster coached the Eskimos in the 1990s. “He had time to stop and talk to a stranger at the airport or hockey arena as much as he had time to talk to fans and be genuinely interested in their story.

“He had a great feel for putting himself in a person’s shoes and realizing they had an equal reason to be on this earth as the rest of us.”

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats will honour Lancaster on Friday night when they face the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Hall of Fame game. There will be a moment of silence in Lancaster’s memory as well as a video tribute.

It’s been a tough year for the CFL with the loss of former commissioner Jake Gaudaur, Hamilton Ticats player Jamaica Jackson, B.C. Lions president Bob Ackles, commentator Leif Peterson and Hall of Famer Earl (Earthquake) Lunsford.

“Our league has lost its ‘Little General,’ and our country has lost a giant of a man,” CFL commissioner Mark Cohon said in a statement. “Ron Lancaster is deeply loved across Canada, as a CFL player, coach, broadcaster and mentor, but most of all as a true friend.

“His career spanned eras, bridged west and east, and delighted our fans.”

Lancaster first came to Canada in 1960 as a quarterback and defensive back with the Ottawa Rough Riders. Over the next 48 years, the Canadian Football Hall of Famer would establish himself as one of the league’s top passers, head coaches and executives.

“Ron and I first crossed paths in 1960 in Ottawa,” said Russ Jackson, the legendary former Riders quarterback. “We sat beside each other in the locker-room but it was never a situation where ‘I hate you, I don’t want you to do well.’ I think that was because of our personalities and that we both appreciated each other’s ability and understanding of the game.”

Despite being rivals, Jackson said he and Lancaster always wanted to help each other out.

“If the team did well, then we all did well,” said Jackson. “In those days, you played with many of the same players for years and developed relationships with them. Later on, Ron and I became very close friends when he was coaching the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and I was working on the radio broadcasts because we’d spend a lot of time talking about football.”

Campbell said as a player Lancaster was a stickler for detail and demanded that his team practise hard because it would carry over to the football field. It’s those qualities, Campbell added, that made Lancaster a great coach.

“It was just the smoothest and greatest of situations because he had a good idea of what to do and what he wanted to do and had a way of demanding it,” he said. “At the same time all the players knew that he loved them and was on their side.

“As a player he was the toughest mentally. He made sure in practice you hustled as hard as you did in a game so that he could get the feel for what it would be like in the game. As a coach, his players had a great feel for him, the fans had a great feel for him because they had confidence he knew what he was doing.”

On the sidelines, Lancaster earned a reputation of being a player’s coach. He’d often give his troops the freedom to have fun, but demanded discipline and dedication on the field.

“Ron was a person people gravitated to,” said former punter Sean Flemming, who played for Lancaster in Edmonton. “Loyal to his players almost to a fault, genuine to those he didn’t know.

“Ron always said that the biggest compliment you could give a football player was to call him just that, a player. Someone who went out and did their job without any other reason but for the love of the game and for those around him. Ron was all that and more: He was a player, he was a coach, but most of all he was a great man.”

And he always encouraged his players to have fun, even during Grey Cup week. Former Ticats safety Rob Hitchock said in ’98 and ’99 when Hamilton faced Calgary in consecutive CFL title games, Lancaster allowed his players to go out and experience the nightlife and enjoy the fruits of their labours.

“From the first day he came to Hamilton he stressed to us (players) that if you’re not having fun then you’re not playing the game right,” said Hitchcock. “In 1998 when we faced Calgary in the Grey Cup they (Stampeders) were in lockdown with a curfew.

“For the first four days (Lancaster) let us to out and have fun and enjoy ourselves. We ended up losing to Calgary (in ’98) but we made it back to the Grey Cup against them the next year and Ron did the exact same thing and we ended up winning.”

Lancaster was famous for holding court with reporters, players and fans alike and telling great stories of his playing days.

“Ronnie was the best storyteller, the best person for the CFL and one of my all-time favourites both as a player and as a friend,” said former Riders president Tom Shepherd, who will be inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame this weekend.

Just a couple weeks ago Lancaster, who survived bladder cancer in 2004, was on the golf course with a couple of his former players.

“I golfed with Ron, Damon Allen and Danny McManus in St. Catharines two weeks ago and he was still playing great golf,” said Hitchcock. “It was great because at the end of the day he wanted the scorecard because Danny and Damon had passed him (in all-time CFL passing yardage) and he had coached me for a long time.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time but then on the drive home it hit me that I was playing golf with three legends of the game and yet for Ron to do that, well, it was special.”

Al Ford, a former teammate of Lancaster’s in Regina who later served as the Riders GM, said Lancaster is among the best ever to play in Canada and made those around him better.

“If you’re looking for that handful of individuals that are the face of the Canadian Football League and what it stands for, Ron Lancaster is certainly in that group,” he said. “That is the sign of an individual that he’s going to set records, he’s going to do everything, but he also makes everybody else better around him.

“He was certainly an unselfish player who never gave up.”

Lancaster was born in Fairchance, Pa., but grew up in the blue collar steel town of Clairton. He excelled as a high school quarterback but due to his small stature was overlooked by the big U.S. colleges. He instead played for tiny Wittenburg University, a private liberal arts school in Springfield, Ohio. He led the football team to a 25-8-1 record from 1956 to ’59, helping it capture a national championship in 1958.

Upon arriving in Canada, Lancaster quickly showed he could thrive in the pass-happy CFL with its longer, wider field. When he retired, he did so as the league’s career leader in pass attempts (6,2
33), completions (3,384), yards (50,535), touchdowns (333) and interceptions (396).

Lancaster played 19 seasons in the CFL before moving into coaching, the broadcast booth and the front office.

He began his career with Ottawa in 1960 but was dealt to Saskatchewan prior to the 1963 season.

Lancaster spent the next 16 seasons with the Riders, leading them to five Grey Cup appearances and their first-ever CFL championship in 1966 when Saskatchewan upset Jackson and the Rough Riders 29-14.

Saskatchewan had just one losing season with Lancaster at quarterback, in his last season when they posted a 4-11-1 record.

Lancaster won the Schenley Award as the CFL’s outstanding player in 1970 and 1976 and was a finalist in 1966. Four times he was a league all-star and in 2006 was voted seventh overall in the CFL’s Top 50 poll conducted by TSN.

He retired after the ’78 season to become the Riders’ coach, but was fired after consecutive 2-14 seasons. Lancaster remained in the game as a coach with Saskatchewan until 1980 before embarking on a successful career as colour commentator on CBC’s CFL telecasts. He was part of a trio that included Don Wittman doing the play-by-play and former Toronto Argos head coach Leo Cahill doing colour commentary along with Lancaster.

Lancaster later returned to coaching with Edmonton, posting an 83-42 record from 1991 to ’97. He led the Eskimos to a Grey Cup title in ’93 and is the club’s career leader in coaching victories.

Lancaster became Hamilton’s 17th head coach in November 1997 and enjoyed immediate success, leading the club to consecutive Grey Cup appearances in ’98 and ’99, winning the latter. He stepped down as coach following the 2003 season to become the club’s GM but returned to the sidelines on an interim in 2006 when Greg Marshall was fired.

He left coaching for good following the 2006 season when Charlie Taaffe was hired for the position. Lancaster is fifth in CFL history with 142 regular-season coaching wins.

Lancaster had been working as a colour analyst on Tiger-Cats radio broadcasts this season in addition to serving as the club’s senior adviser to organizational development.

Lancaster was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1982 and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.

Lancaster is survived by his wife Bev, three children Lana, Ron and Bob and his four grandchildren. There were no immediate details regarding funeral arrangements.

Note: The Stampeders will be honouring the memory of Ron Lancaster prior to the September 20 game vs. Toronto with a pre-game ceremony and moment of silence.