Leo Cahill has passed away

[jerrym]

The following article is titled "The Saga of Leon McQuay" but much of it deals with Leo Cahill and the Argos in the 1970s, so I have excerpted those parts.

Leon was enticed to fly north by Toronto Argonaut coach Leo Cahill, who showed the 19 year old “a briefcase full of cash.
“Was it legal?” says [his widow] Ethel, “Hell no! ....

“Those were crazy times,” says former Argo “Tricky” Dick Thornton, “and we were all wearing weird clothes and there were protests and massive demonstrations. It was all those crazy things happening around us. I had to think outside the box and keep doing things differently in order to keep my own sanity.” The ‘71 Argos were a squad of dope-smoking, free-loving, longhaired lunatics. UCLA’s Mel Profit had played in the NFL but then disappeared for a year to backpack around Europe. He came back railing against “the cult of the athlete” before signing a pro contract in Toronto. Thornton gave gold pendants etched with his uniform number to every girl he slept with. ...

Mel had a store called the First Asylum – he sold the long robes like they wear in Morocco. Shirts that Africans wear. He was the number one guy that was dancing to his own drummer.” ...

“The city was so proud of those guys,” says Leo Cahill, who is now 83 and lives in Sarnia. “The thing that impressed me most is that people around the city couldn’t get enough of the players. They identified with them – they knew who they were. Even today, you could ask the normal person on the street, who’s playing the left guard? They wouldn’t have a clue. In those days, people on the street could name every player.” ...
“In all honesty, we smoked a bit. But we had young guys who’d do this on game day. Game day. I got upset with them about this. I wanted to win. I wanted to win. I’ve seen guys think they have a ball in their hand and the ball goes down to the ground – because they thought they had the ball.” [says Dave Raimey]
Cahill, an American who had played in the Rose Bowl and fought in Korea, hauled in his most precious catch with McQuay. ...

“I feel like I know Leo Cahill. I only met him once, when I was 2. My dad didn’t like many people, but he loved Leo Cahill.”
Cahill was shameless in rebuilding the Argos. They hadn’t been in the Grey Cup for 20 years. Media Mogul John Bassett owned the team and he was willing to open is bankbook in order to get the Argos back on top. The dollar was high and the CFL owners could compete with the salaries in the American and National Football Leagues in the US. Other franchises in Canada, like BC and Calgary, had built stable, winning teams. Now Toronto was going to crash their party. ...

The brazenness of the whole ’71 Argos spectacle infuriated the rest of Canada—rarely has everyone else hated Toronto with such intensity. “We went from nobody talking about the Argonauts to everyone talking about the Argonauts,” says Coach Leo Cahill. “It was a sensational time, up until that Grey Cup.”...

“One of the games,” says Raimey, “Leon didn’t even catch the plane. It was in Montreal. When he got there, Leo wanted everyone to stand up and clap. He missed the damn plane, you know. If that had been anyone else than Leon, Leo would have been livid. Any other team in the league would have benched him or traded him.”
“He kind of felt out of place,” says Cahill, “and he was getting his feet on the ground. He didn’t really have any friends on the football team. He was kind of a loner.
“He never really had an opportunity to express his talents. It went before him that he didn’t have the greatest attitude and all that. There was times during practice that he’d say, ‘I don’t feel too well.’ I said, go sit down. The other players thought I was (favouring him). They implied in their get-togethers and that that Leon was treated very special.” ...

Coach Leo Cahill was in heaven. Sure he babied his star player, but he was getting results. The team was winning and they were the hottest ticket in town.
“We went from modest season ticket holders from somewhere in the 20s to up to 40-thousand seats.
“As a coach you see great players like that once in a while. Leon could run faster sideways than most people could forwards ...

“I saw him get the ball,” says Raimey, “he made contact with the ball – he didn’t pull it in. He kept fumbling trying to catch it because someone was trying to tackle him, but he just let it go. This is what I remember – someone was closing in on him and he just let it go. He was more concerned about getting hit.
“The field was all wet,” says Cahill. “We were down inside the 10 yard line, and gave the ball to Leon, and unfortunately…I always said, when Leon slipped, I fell. Leon slipped the ballgame went out of control, I fell because I wanted so badly to win that game.”
Pete Martin: “The coach complained the ground caused the fumble – they said it was a bad call.” ...

“I went over to Leon after he fumbled on the sidelines,” says Cahill. “I put my arm around him and said, don’t you worry about that – it happens in football. He said something to me – I wish I could remember. I’m 83 now. I was kind of a father figure to him. He was really worried about living in the big city. He wasn’t friendly with the players. But they didn’t know what his feelings were–about how he’d be treated. If the players would have known his inner feelings, there would have been more sympathy. Then when he didn’t open up to them, go out and have a beer with them, they probably had the wrong impression.
“It was such a disappointment – that’s why people talk about it. They talk about it because they love the players, they loved the characters. You can’t go to a city now where the city identified with the players the way the people identified with that team." ...

After that season the team essentially disbanded. Theismann went on to have a hall-of–fame career in the NFL. And Leon McQuay was traded to Calgary—the very team he fumbled against the year before.

http://www.andrewgregg.ca/2012/11/19...f-leon-mcquay/