Roy Shivers took his rightful place in the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ Plaza of Honour on Saturday, but the wounds from his departure 18 years ago may never fully heal.
“It didn’t end like I wanted it to end, because I think I left (head coach Danny Barrett) and them in the lurch,” Shivers told the media ahead of his induction. “I think if I’d have been here, they’d have beaten B.C. in the playoffs. There was a lot of turmoil going on back then, but that’s the only regret I have. I didn’t finish the job. I don’t think I finished the job.”
The Roughriders hired Shivers ahead of the 2000 season, making him the first-ever Black general manager in franchise history. He took over a club that went 3-15 the previous season and over the next seven years would help transform them into playoff contenders, posting a 52-64-1 record and making two West Final appearances.
However, the team stumbled to consecutive .500 records in 2004 and 2005. Shivers failed to re-sign future Hall of Fame quarterback Henry Burris and the franchise was rocked by repeated off-the-field controversies, including sexual assault charges against linebacker Trevis Smith and the arrest of running back Kenton Keith for aggravated assault.
Amidst these mounting tensions, Shivers feuded openly with team president Jim Hopson, refusing to submit to his new organizational authority and saying he could not work for him. As a result, he was fired by the team’s board of directors just nine games into the 2006 season.
Now with the benefit of hindsight, Shivers believes he should have taken a different tact.
“After I sat down and thought about it, I said, ‘Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut,'” the now-83-year-old Hall of Famer acknowledged.
“I made the decision but that was the biggest mistake I made here, when I let Danny and those guys down. Danny was as important to this as I was because he was really good at a lot of small things. They had a great staff, and I felt I let them down when I walked away. It’s been bothering me ever since.”
The Riders finished the 2006 season with a 9-9 record for the third year in a row but advanced to the West Final, losing 45-18 to the B.C. Lions. Without Shivers to support him, Barrett did not return to Saskatchewan the following season. New general manager Eric Tillman installed Kent Austin as head coach and the pair won the franchise’s third Grey Cup championship that same year.
Unfortunately for Shivers, that came as no surprise after years of believing his team was on the edge of greatness.
“That really hurt, because I thought they had a great team,” he admitted. “I told ’em, ‘Now watch them win the Grey Cup the next year’ and I’ll be damned if they didn’t do it. I knew it. We had a damn good football team.”
“I had been in the league for a long time and we had done the same thing in Calgary and B.C. I knew we were going to succeed, but we were just trying to hold on until we made it and we kept running into these off-the-field incidents.”
While he never saw the fruits of his labour, the story of Saskatchewan’s ensuing success can not be told without Shivers. Mere months before his firing, he pulled off the most important trade in franchise history when he sent running back Corey Holmes, safety Scott Gordon, the team’s first-round pick in 2007, and the rights to quarterback Reggie Ball to Hamilton in exchange for the first overall selection in the Ottawa Renegades dispersal draft and a negotiation list player.
The dispersal pick wound up being future M.O.P. Kerry Joseph, who quarterbacked Saskatchewan to Grey Cup glory in 2007. The neg list throw-in was an unheralded pivot from North Carolina named Darian Durant, who led the Riders to another championship in 2013 and was enshrined in the Plaza of Honour on Saturday alongside the man who brought him to Regina.
“I think I did a good job. I came into a tough situation. The only thing I knew about Saskatchewan was what I used to get from Don Matthews — it was like purgatory for him,” Shiver said of his time with the franchise. “Every time he cut somebody, he’d threaten to send them to Saskatchewan. I never could figure it out, but then I thought it’s just like Green Bay — the town centers around the football team.”
“It feels rewarding (to be honoured). I wish Danny was here to go in with me, and my coaching staff, because they did a lot of it, they did most of it. I was just the guy that took the verbal abuse, but they did a heck of a job.”
Though Shivers was a divisive figure at the time of his departure, he says he has been greeted much more warmly with every return visit to Regina. Despite all the controversy, he still has an appreciation for the province, its franchise, and the passionate fans that support it.
“When I was here, I enjoyed it because confrontation doesn’t bother me. I like it, as a matter of fact,” he laughed.
“Thoughts can’t hurt you and if words were hurtful, there’d be a lot of people walking around with black eyes and teeth knocked out. I don’t have a problem, I had a great time here. I met some great people and I’d do it again.”
If he could do it again, you can bet there is one thing he’d change — and it isn’t keeping Henry Burris when he had the chance.
“I’ll feel until the day I die that I didn’t complete the job. I knew we were right on the cusp,” Shivers said. “That one year when we missed all that crap over in B.C., we should have won it that year.”
J.C. Abbott is a University of British Columbia graduate and high school football coach. He covers the CFL, B.C. Lions, CFL Draft and the three-down league's Global initiative.
