Nearmint's Vintage Football Card Blog

Two Canadian Football League Hall of Famers, Ron Atchison and Frank Rigney, passed away this week. Both players appeared on numerous CFL football cards. I am not an expert on CFL cards (or on the CFL, for that matter), so I took the opportunity to do some web searching and learn a little.

A tribute to Ron Atchison on the Vancouver Sun web site says that he walked-on to the Saskatchewan training camp in 1952, and he ended up playing on the Roughriders defensive line for seventeen years. In that span, the team won one Grey Cup (CFL Championship), in 1966. In one playoff game on an icy field, the resourceful Atchison wore his Hush Puppies for better traction–and they worked!

Atchison apparently did not play college football, but prior to trying out with Saskatchewan, he played for the Saskatoon Hilltops in the Canadian Junior Football League. The league is still in operation, and, according to its Wikipedia page, it serves as a sort of minor league for the CFL. There are some fun team names among the league’s current nineteen teams, including the Big Kahuna Rams, the Chilliwack Huskers, the London Beefeaters, and the Windsor AKO Fratmen.

The card pictured here is Atchison’s 1965 Topps CFL card. 1965 Topps is probably my favorite CFL set, since the cards are colorful and distinct from their NFL counterparts. (Some CFL cards, such as 1958 Topps, 1962 Post, and 1968 O-Pee-Chee, look just like the NFL cards from those years, so to me they’re not very interesting.) Atchison appeared on many more cards, and although I don’t yet have them, you can see a nice assortment on eBay.

Like Atchison, Frank Rigney spent his entire CFL career with the same team, playing ten years on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive line. In those ten years, Winnipeg played in five Grey Cups and won four of them. Rigney was a CFL West All Star in seven of his ten seasons. He played college football for Iowa, and he was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but I did not find anything that said he reported to the Eagles training camp.

Pictured here is Rigney’s 1962 Topps CFL card, half of a panel he shared with teammate Gordie Rowland. The two-card panels in this set are the size of standard single cards. Rigney appeared on many more cards, as well as on some Nalley’s Coins, and you can see examples of them on eBay.

Rigney’s obituary on the CBC News web site provides a nice summary of his career.

Jack Cloud, who played fullback and linebacker for the Packers and Redskins from 1950 to 1953, passed away on June 19. Before his pro career, Cloud starred at William and Mary, where he scored five touchdowns in one game and a school record 102 points in one season. After leaving pro football, he coached and taught physical education for 37 years, including 32 years at the Naval Academy. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

Pictured here is Cloud’s 1951 Bowman card. He also appeared on a 1948 Leaf card while still at William and Mary. I don’t yet have that card in the Vintage Football Card Gallery, but you can see examples of it on eBay. Cloud’s obituary at hometownannapolis.com includes a relatively recent photo.

Les Richter, who played linebacker, guard, and kicker in nine seasons with the Los Angeles Rams, passed away this morning. Richter made the Pro Bowl in eight of his nine seasons. According to an article on the Crazy Canton Cuts blog, Richter was traded from the Dallas Texans, who drafted him, to the Rams for eleven players. After he retired from football, Richter became involved with auto racing, and at one point he served as NASCAR’s director of competition.

Richter appeared on at least one card in each year of his football career–remarkable for a defensive player–and on two cards before his career even started. His rookie cards are 1952 Bowman Large and 1952 Bowman Small cards, issued after he graduated from the University of California. (The Large is pictured here.) He served in the Army for two years after college, so he did not play for the Rams until 1954.

You can see all of Les Richter’s football cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

Jim Copeland, who played guard and center for the Cleveland Browns from 1967 to 1974, passed away on June 4. Copeland played in two NFL Championship games: in 1967, against the Baltimore Colts, and in 1968, against the Minnesota Vikings. After his NFL career, Copeland served as athletic director at William and Mary, Utah, Virginia, and Southern Methodist. There is a nice photo of Copeland and a summary of his career at VirginaSports.com.

To my knowledge, Copeland did not appear on any football cards–not unusual for a lineman. He did, however, appear on the 1972 Sunoco Stamp pictured here. There are twenty-four players per team in the base 1972 Sunoco Stamp set–twice as many as in a typical card set of the time–so the set includes numerous players who never made it onto cards. As I wrote in an earlier article, the photos of several Browns in the Sunoco set, including Copeland, were from a mud game against the Colts.

Stan Jones, Hall of Fame lineman for the Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins, passed away on May 21. According to his page on the Pro Football Hall of Fame web site, Jones played on the Bears’ offensive line for eight seasons, from 1954 to 1961, and he was selected for the Pro Bowl in seven of those seasons. In 1962, he played both guard and defensive tackle, and the following season he became a full-time defensive tackle. He played his last season, 1966, in Washington.

Though linemen in the 50s and 60s did not typically appear on many football cards, Jones appeared on at least eight. The card pictured here is his rookie card, a 1956 Topps. You can see all of Jones’s cards in the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

George Gross, defensive tackle for the San Diego Chargers from 1963 to 1967, passed away on April 27. Gross was known for his strength, and was nicknamed “Mr. Muscles.” There is a nice tribute to him on the San Diego Union-Tribune web site.

Pictured here is Gross’s 1965 Topps card, which I believe is his only card. In 1964 and 1965, Topps printed large sets of football cards for the eight AFL teams. Whereas most football card sets at that time contained about ten cards per team, the 1964 Topps and 1965 Topps sets each contained about twenty. Hence Topps was able to include a lot of players who had not previously appeared on cards.

Bruce Alford Sr. passed away on May 8. He was a receiver for the New York Yankees of the All-American Conference and New York Yanks of the NFL from 1946 to 1951. He was voted 1st Team All-AAFC by the Associated Press in 1947.

(The Yankees and Yanks were actually two different teams. When the AAFC merged with the NFL in 1950, the players from the AAFC’s New York Yankees were divided between the NFL’s New York Bulldogs and New York Giants. The Bulldogs then changed their name to the Yanks.)

After his playing days, Alford officiated in the NFL for twenty years, from 1960 to 1979. His son, Bruce Alford Jr., also played in the NFL, kicking for the Redskins and Bills from 1967 to 1969.

To my knowledge, Alford appeared on just one card, the 1951 Bowman card pictured here. I am not aware of any cards of the AAFC’s New York Yankees.

Andy Kozar, the fullback on the Tennessee Volunteers 1951 National Championship team, passed away today. He was named the Most Outstanding Back in the Vols’ win over Texas in the Cotton Bowl that year. An article on the Knoxville News Sentinel web site includes a great photo of a leaping Kozar.

Kozar was drafted by the Chicago Bears in 1952, and he appeared on the 1953 Bowman card shown here. According to the News Sentinel article, he served from 1953 to 1955 in the Army, and he reported to the Bears in 1955. He apparently did not see playing time, though, since he does not appear on a page of his own at pro-football-reference.com.

Art Faircloth, a back for the New York Giants in 1947 and 1948, passed away on April 1. In his two years with the Giants, Faircloth played in a total of five games, doing a little of everything: he had eleven career rushes, three passes, three interceptions, four punts, and two kick returns.

Though his career was short, Faircloth appeared on a football card, the 1948 Bowman pictured here.

Don Flynn, who played for the Dallas Texans and New York Titans in 1960 and 1961, passed away on April 14. He appeared on one football card that I know of, the 1960 Fleer card pictured here. Flynn’s obituary at tulsaworld.com includes a nice picture of him with Bill Meek, his college coach at the University of Houston. There is a recent photo of Flynn and his granddaughters at fanbase.com.

Though his card says he was a quarterback, Flynn spent his playing time in the AFL at defensive back. He had five career interceptions in the AFL, returning one of them for a touchdown.

Prior to his days in the AFL, Flynn spent one season, 1958, in the Canadian Football League, playing running back for the Edmonton Eskimos. His page at cflapedia.com shows his stats for the season. An article at tylerpaper.com says that Edmonton and the Dallas Texans “vied for Flynn’s services,” but that probably is not correct, since the Texans did not exist in 1958.