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They come from different backgrounds and had varying degrees of athletic ability, but make no doubt, the four individuals who will be honoured at this week’s Toronto Argonaut home game are all worthy of the accolades.
One will be the 27th player honoured as an All-Time Argo, the highest recognition a player can attain with the team, aside from having their number retired.
But there was a void. The honour Ricky Ray will receive is reserved for players, voted upon by members of the Argonauts Alumni Association. On Friday night three people will be recognized for their contributions to the Argos in a non-playing capacity.
Ricky Ray, Lew Hayman, Bob O’Billovich, and Peter Martin are all in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Ray as a player, Hayman and O’Billovich as builders, Martin is in the media category.
Aside from Ray, the three members to be acknowledged on Friday were selected by the organization, with the full co-operation of the Argonauts Alumni Association.
Of the four, Ray’s contributions are the most well-known, partly because of the position he played so well, partly because his playing career ended just a half-dozen seasons ago.
The other three may not be as familiar to younger fans. For most Argo supporters, Lew Hayman is just a name they know from the record book.
The New Jersey native had a background in basketball, starring for Syracuse University before heading to Canada after graduation. He became an assistant football coach at the University of Toronto in 1932, the same year he joined the Argos, also as an assistant. He took over from Buck McKenna as the interim head coach that year and was given the job on a full-time basis in 1933.
The move paid off as the Scullers won the Grey Cup that year, adding championships under Hayman in 1937 and 1938.
Professor James Fraser is the preeminent expert of pre-CFL Argonaut history and is the man behind the @BygoneBoatmen account on X. The history professor at the University of Guelph says that while Hayman was the first American to coach the Argos, it was his ability to adapt to the Canadian rules that helped make him successful.
“The thing that people really liked about him was that he didn’t come up from the States and introduce an American way of playing football,” Fraser told Argonauts.ca. “He quickly adapted to the way the Canadians played the game and married American and Canadian ways, particularly on offence, to create something that went on to win three Grey Cups and to make the playoffs six straight years after the Argos hadn’t won anything since 1921.”
Coaching in an era when the field had no hashmarks, the ball was often put into play close to the sideline, creating an enormous playing surface to one side. This is where Hayman’s ingenuity shone.
“The old-time reporters called it hot potato football,” Hayman explained. “There was the forward pass, but they used it in a limited way back then. There was a lot of lateralling involved and it used the full width of the field.
“He came up with this thing called ‘The Argonaut End Run’ which revolutionized how the game was played. It basically involved the quarterback taking a snap, the three backfielders and the quarterback would sweep to the strong side of the field. The person in the chain had an option to run with the ball, kick the ball, or pass the ball. Each player in succession read the situation and would run or lateral it to the next guy. If they ended getting all the way to the outside the guy with the ball was off to the races.”
Peter Martin’s face isn’t as well-known as his voice. After an eight-year playing career as an Argo linebacker 1965-72, he joined the team’s radio crew in 1977. While missing a handful of years as the radio rights took an occasional Argo bounce from station to station, he finally hung up the microphone after the 2010 season, 33 years after his first broadcast.
He was also an important part of the organization with his long-time role as the president of the Argonauts Alumni Association.
In all, Martin served the Argos from 1965 to 2013, when he stepped down as the Alumni Association’s president.
“He’s right up there for the title of Mr. Argo,” said Danny Webb, the team’s equipment manager since 1985. “He’s passionate about the Argos, which is pretty obvious when you knock on his front door and there’s an Argo logo on it.”
Martin was perfect in his role as the team’s colour commentator. He cared deeply about the team, was brutally honest about the teams play – sometimes to the displeasure of ownership and/or management – and he had a natural curiosity about the players he was talking about.
“As a broadcaster he was always interested in the back story of the players,” said Webb. “It just wasn’t what he’d see on the field, he was interested in getting in-depth with the guy and getting to know where he was from, where he played, things about his family. He unearthed information and tidbits that you’d never hear about, but Pete had a knack for getting guys to open up and tell their whole story.”
He was inducted into the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2000 and to this day remains one of the best ambassadors the team has ever had.
For Argo fans of a certain vintage, Bob O’Billovich coached the team that gave birth to their love of the Double Blue. He was a low-profile assistant coach in Ottawa when Ralph Sazio hired him to take over the team in 1982.
The Argos responded with back-to-back trips to the Grey Cup, winning it in 1983 to snap a 31-year drought. “Obie” would lead the team back to the championship game in 1987, only to lose to Edmonton on a last-second field goal.
O’Billovich holds the Argo records for years coached, wins, divisional first place finishes, and playoff appearances.
Like his head coach, fullback Bob Bronk joined the Argos in 1982 and played for O’Billovich for five seasons.
“He was a really, really good assessor of talent,” Bronk told Argonauts.ca. “He saw talent in guys that another scout or coach wouldn’t see. He was defensively minded, but he was smart enough to always have good assistant coaches. We had (offensive coordinator) Darrel (Mouse) Davis and that was transformational. We finished in first place and went to the Grey Cup. (General Manager) Ralph Sazio was a part of that, but Obie recruited really good assistant coaches and that made a big difference and he let them do what they had to do.”
O’Billovich, Martin, Hayman, and Ray all represented the Argos remarkably well, whether it be on the field, on the sideline, on the air, or in the community. They are all well deserving of the ceremony that will take play at halftime on Friday night.