When Phil Kershaw became the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ President in ’89, he didn’t expect to meet 99.
But time spent with Wayne Gretzky was just one of the many memorable experiences for Kershaw, who succeeded Tom Shepherd as President of the community-owned Canadian Football League team on Dec. 13, 1989.
“It was a very interesting period for the Roughriders and the CFL,” Kershaw, 75, reflects from his home in Maple Ridge, B.C.
Over 1,135 days as the head of the Roughriders’ Management Committee — occupying a position that is now known as Chair of the Board of Directors — Kershaw experienced quite a ride.
Amid the euphoria that resulted from the Roughriders’ 1989 Grey Cup victory, Kershaw stood up at the Annual General Meeting and, in his introductory address as President, made a case for Regina, and Saskatchewan, as a future Grey Cup host.
Before too long, Kershaw took over as Vice-Chairman of the league.
Then the Toronto Argonauts were purchased by a Bruce McNall-led group that also included Gretzky and John Candy.
The new ownership’s most memorable move was the signing of Notre Dame Fighting Irish sensation Raghib (Rocket) Ismail — who would have been the first overall selection in the 1991 NFL Draft — to a four-year, $18.2-million contract. Ismail’s salary instantly exceeded that of any NFL player, at a time when Joe Montana, John Elway and Jerry Rice were still marquee attractions.
Also in 1991, Kershaw was in charge when the Roughriders fired John Gregory, the Grey Cup-winning Head Coach in 1989, and replaced him with Don Matthews after a 1-6 start.
Just 12 days before Gregory was dismissed, Ismail and the Argonauts paid a visit to Regina. The team’s travelling party also included Candy, who played golf with Kershaw and Shepherd at the Wascana Country Club leading up to the game.
“It was very heady stuff for a guy working out of Regina,” marvels Kershaw, who resided in the Queen City from 1972 to 1994.
“I got to hang out with all of (the Argos’ owners), including the late, great John Candy, who I got to know quite well. As well as seeing him at CFL meetings, my sons were going to school in Los Angeles at that time and playing high school football, so I got to see him there.
“I got to meet Wayne Gretzky, which of course was a huge honour for any Canadian. I got to actually sit and spend time with The Great One.
“And McNall, notwithstanding his somewhat mixed record, was a very fascinating and interesting guy.
“They were an adventure, I’ll put it that way.”
McNall was close to completing the sale of the Argonauts when, on March 3, 1994, the 1995 Grey Cup Festival was awarded to Saskatchewan.
Assent from the CFL’s Board of Governors completed a process that was ignited by Kershaw’s bold address at the 1989 AGM.
“One of the things I always felt we had to deal with as the Roughriders is that we were fighting our own little self-imposed inferiority complex,” he says.
“We always saw ourselves as the little Roughriders and we thought ‘we can’t do this’ and ‘we can’t do that.’ We felt like ‘we can’t sign this guy’ and ‘we can’t have that.’ I thought, ‘Now that we’ve won the Grey Cup, why don’t we use this to kind of launch ourselves into a bigger sphere?’ ”
How did that go over at the time?
“To be totally honest, it wasn’t particularly well-received, including from our own people,” a chuckling Kershaw replies.
“Some of them thought, ‘We’ve allowed a lunatic to become President of the team. This guy’s out of his mind. He thinks we’re going to have the Grey Cup!’ ”
Those who found the notion to be preposterous cited a lack of hotel rooms and Taylor Field’s modest seating capacity of 27,000 and change.
“Of course, that was fixed by bringing in temporary seats,” Kershaw says.
“The other (objection) that was less valid and had more to do with our inferiority complex was, ‘Our fans will never pay the premium prices to go to the Grey Cup Game.’
“To me, that was absurd. Saskatchewan has always had a tremendous record. Why do you think they host the Brier and all these events all the time? Because people show up all the time in disproportionate numbers compared to other markets.
“But there was that sort of threshold trauma. We did propose it and it didn’t really go anywhere.”
Not for a while, anyway, but there was eventually a groundswell of support behind the idea.
One of the key events was the Roughriders’ Aug. 27, 1993 home date with the Sacramento Gold Miners — the first game at Taylor Field against an American-based opponent.
The “Keep The Pride Alive Friday” game, in which Kershaw and Shepherd were integrally involved as Past Presidents, was attended by a once-unimaginable crowd of 33,032.
“We oversold the stadium and people sat on the grass in the end zones,” says Kershaw, who was succeeded as President by John Lipp.
“It showed that we could do this.
“John Lipp deserves full credit for it. He advantaged that and put in a concentrated effort, backed by Premier Roy Romanow and others, to acquire the Grey Cup Game for 1995.”
The event was an immense success and, nearly 30 years later, four Grey Cup Festivals have been held in Saskatchewan and a state-of-the-art Mosaic Stadium is nearly a decade beyond the ground-breaking stage.
Thirty-plus years after handing over the Presidential reins to Lipp on Jan. 21, 1993, Kershaw is the owner of PJK Communications and CEO/co-founder of ABCT Pacific VCC. Many of Kershaw’s efforts revolve around clean technology and alternative energy.
But, in one sense, there really isn’t a comparable alternative to serving as the Roughriders’ President.
“I can’t compare it to anything else I’ve done,” Kershaw says. “I’m not someone who likes to sit here and say ‘I did this’ and ‘I did that,’ but I’ve had a few things in my life.
“I can’t think that there’s anything in my life — aside from the obvious, like being a father (to Mike, Kris and Vel) and a grandfather — that comes close to being the President of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
“I later spent a year as President of the Ottawa Rough Riders. No disrespect to our friends in the nation’s capital, but there’s no comparison.
“The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the premier organization in the province. They have the huge, disproportionate, captive interest of a million people who follow the team religiously.”
The intense interest seldom fails to elicit impassioned responses.
“The good news is that when the team wins and is doing well, there’s nothing better in the world than being the President of the Saskatchewan Roughriders,” Kershaw says.
“However, when the wind turns in your face and you’re not doing so well, you might want to get somebody to go to Safeway to pick up groceries for you, because you may have a tough time getting in and out of there without getting chastised.”
As experiences go, though, it was a great one.
