Talk:Vern Graham

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GRAHAM WAS A STAR OF '49 STAMPS Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 8:35 AM

By Daryl Slade Calgary Herald

Vern Graham may have kicked himself forever for not returning to play with the Calgary Stampeders for their unbeaten 1948 Grey Cup-winning season — if he hadn't met his future wife Marjorie while out of football for the year.

Graham, loyal to his 1947 coach Dean Griffing, opted not to play under new coach Les Lear, who had been brought in from the U.S. to construct the championship

"He didn't like that they brought Les Lear up, so he didn't go out for the team," Marjorie Graham, his wife of 60 years, recalled this week. "But he swallowed his pride in '49 and made the team."

"He came up to Sylvan Lake, where his dad had a cabin, and we met there," she added, surrounded by family. "You guys wouldn't be here if he did play in '48."

She said he came back to play another three years with the Stampeders and became friends with the legendary Lear.

Graham died March 22 at the age of 85.

While Graham did not get to be part of the Stamps' first Grey Cup team, he got a decent consolation prize the next year. The Stampeders won 13 of their 14 regular season games and made it back to the Grey Cup, losing 28-15 to the Montreal Alouettes.

Graham had a banner season. He was named a Western Interprovincial Football Union first-team all star and won the Dave Dryburgh trophy as the league's top scorer with 58 points -- two touchdowns, 27 converts and seven field goals.

His 30-yard field goal on a cold, snowy day at Mewata Stadium in the second match of the two-game, total-point Western final helped the Stamps beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 22-21 and earn a return berth to the Grey Cup.

Graham also made both his convert attempts in the Grey Cup, which featured other great Calgary players such as Norman Kwong, now Alberta's lieutenant-governor, Keith Spaith, Paul Rowe, Woody Strode and Sugarfoot Anderson.

"Vern was kind of a quiet guy and a good, reliable kicker -- pretty steady. We could depend on him," recalled Anderson, a teammate from 1949-51.