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MEL WILSON, 90: ATHLETE Pragmatic, bruising lineman played in eight Grey Cup games Centre who most often played for Winnipeg was fond of snapping the ball during a career that spanned 13 seasons. In an era of razzle-dazzle plays, he nurtured imagination in gridiron TOM HAWTHORN Special to The Globe and Mail November 22, 2007 VICTORIA -- Mel Wilson was a hard-nosed football player who excelled at snapping the ball, a little regarded task until mishandled. He was one of those bruising lineman who battle in the trenches of football's front lines. Known to launch himself at an opponent, one wartime sportswriter noted how his "powerdive method of tackling" ended with a crunch that could be heard throughout the stadium. In an era of razzle-dazzle plays, he was always conjuring bizarre schemes in which he would emerge as a ball carrier. Though spry on his toes, he was a typical lineman in not being the swiftest runner. That limitation did not suppress his imagination. Even when he did not have the ball, the centre tried to be in the vicinity of a ball-carrying teammate, a shadow constantly calling for an emergency lateral pass. "He had so many places to go every time he snapped the ball that he practically needed a social secretary to keep track for him," wrote the sports columnist Scott Young. Against the odds, Mr. Wilson scored a touchdown on one such play during the 1941 Grey Cup championship game. Unkind commentators suggested his unique pursuit of his own teammates was the result of having spent too much time bent over waiting to snap the ball between his legs. In a 13-season span, he played in eight Grey Cup games and sat on the bench for a ninth. A dedicated fitness buff well into his old age, Mr. Wilson was a formidable presence on the gridiron. He was a block of a man at 6-foot-2, 230 pounds with a face as oblong as a rugby ball. He was a muscular presence in the middle of the line on both offence and defence. In the years before official all-star teams were named, leaving the task to sports reporters, the centre was a perennial on all-Western lists. He was thrice cited for all-Canada honours. YOUNGEST CHILD The third and youngest child in his family, he grew up in Winnipeg's Fort Rouge neighbourhood. As a boy, he would climb the fence at River Park to watch senior football matches. He began playing himself at the age of 12 at St. John's College, before joining the school team at Kelvin High for two seasons. In 1936, he was captain of the St. John's Roamers, which won the junior football championship of Western Canada by defeating the Moose Jaw (Sask.) Millers, 13-5. At 20, he joined the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The youngster was a spare, yet he was one of 26 players invited to travel east as Western champions for the Grey Cup game in Toronto. They watched the Eastern showdown between the Sarnia (Ont.) Imperials and the Big Four champion Toronto Argonauts, won by Toronto, before settling in for a week of practice at the training facilities of the University of Michigan Wolverines at Ann Arbor, Mich. The championship game on Dec. 11, 1937, was won by the Argos, 4-3, which remains the lowest scoring Grey Cup game. Mr. Wilson watched from the bench. He would get plenty of action in the seasons to come, playing both ways for most of the eight Grey Cups in which he saw action. The Argos and the Blue Bombers met again in the 1938 classic, won again by the Easterners, 30-7, as Toronto spare Red Storey romped for a record three touchdowns in the final quarter. Mr. Storey, an all-round athlete, later became a famous NHL referee (obituary, March 16, 2006). The 1939 football season was marked by the outbreak of war in Europe in September. The Blue Bombers were a Prairie power, steamrolling all Western opposition. A midseason thrashing of Calgary included a payoff for Mr. Wilson's eager pursuit of the ball. "On the Calgary 40, Ches McCance rose like a bolo ball out of an intent group of Calgary pass-defencemen, gathered in the pass, and left his little group of Albertans with a series of ballet twists," The Winnipeg Free Press reported. "Finally cornered near the Calgary 20, he was falling when Mel Wilson loomed on the horizon with his arms out, and McCance pushed across a hot potato six-foot lateral. The husky centreman stepped around one surprised Calgarian and romped across the goal line standing up. Which made it unanimous, because 6,000 people in Osborne Stadium's stands were standing up, too. And cheering." Mr. Wilson and the Blue Bombers won the Grey Cup in 1939 by defeating the Rough Riders in Ottawa. It was Winnipeg's third successive appearance in the Dominion championship game. In 1941, Ottawa and Winnipeg met at Varsity Stadium in Toronto for the Grey Cup. Ottawa held a 9-3 lead in the second quarter when Mr. Wilson's alert running once again paid off. On a third-down play, Winnipeg startled the Rough Riders with a trick play, as Mr. Wilson snapped the ball to halfback Wayne Sheley, who pitched it to Bud Marquardt on his far left. He raced 40 yards down the sideline before running into tacklers. Just as he was about to be brought down, he tossed a lateral pass to Mr. Wilson, who avoided a lone defender to score a five-point touchdown. The convert tied the game. Mr. Marquardt scored a major of his own in the second half, as the Blue Bombers prevailed 18-16. Members of a Manitoba regiment raced onto the field at the final whistle to tear down the goal posts at the north end. LONE SAILOR The war interrupted the scheduling of Canadian football, as players enlisted and clubs suspended operations. Games were played by reformed squads featuring servicemen. The Winnipeg RCAF Bombers were made up of eight members of the air force, two from the army, 14 civilians (including 18-year-old student Frank Mathers, who would many years later be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame), and a lone navy representative in Mr. Wilson, an ordinary seaman who had joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. The Winnipeg squad travelled to Toronto to meet the Eastern champion RCAF Hurricanes, who outlasted the visitors, 8-5, to claim the 1942 Grey Cup. The following season found the centre on the roster of the Winnipeg United Services team. They were eliminated from Grey Cup competition when defeated by their crosstown rivals, the RCAF Bombers. After the game, press accounts detailed a bizarre defensive play by Mr. Wilson that brought the crowd to its feet in appreciation. "The play that stands out in my memory, as it must do to all centres, is that one pulled off by Mel Wilson when he took off for all the world like a carrier-launched catapult plane, sailed right over [Nate] Shore's head, and smashed down quarterback [Dave] Greenberg who had just received the ball from centre, and who was perhaps the most surprised boy of the day," Lou Adelman wrote in his Pigskin Parade column. "It's the kind of play that a centre dreams he might some day be able to make, but seldom has the courage to try." As hostilities ended overseas in 1945, the prewar squads quickly reformed. Mr. Wilson rejoined the Blue Bombers. In his first game after being released from wartime service, Mr. Wilson jumped on a fumbled punt on the Regina Roughriders' 20-yard line. Winnipeg scored a touchdown four plays later to open the scoring in what would be a 22-0 romp for the Blue Bombers. "Mel Wilson, the veteran centre, saw his first action and showed he is still one of the best in the business," Winnipeg Free Press sports editor Maurice Smith wrote in his "Sparks from the Anvil" column. The Blue Bombers with Mr. Wilson would lose three consecutive post-war Grey Cup matches to the Argonauts in Toronto, by scores of 35-0, 28-6, and 10-9. The veteran centre jumped to the Montreal Alouettes for the 1948 season, before returning west to join the Calgary Stampeders. He opened the 1949 Grey Cup game by kicking off for Calgary, making it his eighth appearance on the field of the championship game. (The current Canadian Football League record is nine, held by six players.) The Stampeders were defeated by the Alouettes, the team for which Mr. Wilson had played the year before. BALLROOM DANCER He retired after the 1951 season, although he remained fit and active for many decades afterwards. He won trophies in such diverse sports as golf, curling and racquetball. He also claimed prizes as a competitive ballroom dancer. Jogging was a daily activity, while he continued to cross-country ski as an octogenarian. He held positions with the Manitoba Labour Board and with Winnipeg Hydro, finally retiring at age 80 as a commissionaire at the provincial legislature. In 2004, he was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame. Two clubs on which he played - the 1939 and 1941 Blue Bombers - have also been honoured. The failure of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame to induct him as of yet can be regarded as an oversight worthy of correction. MEL WILSON Melford Russel Wilson was born on April 3, 1917, at Winnipeg. He died in Winnipeg on July 29, 2007. He was 90. He never married, and was predeceased by an older brother and an older sister.

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