Chris Schultz has passed away

[paulwoods13]

This is terribly sad news. Chris was one of the greatest Argos of all time, and one of the greatest football broadcasters as well. He was an astute analyst whose insights helped shape (and some of which will appear in) my book about the Argos of the early 1990s. I interviewed him two or three times; each time I came away with much greater appreciation and/or perspective about some individual or issue we discussed.

A few other thoughts:

He was studious; long after the locker room had cleared out after practice, he and fellow tackle Kelvin Pruenster would be in there watching game film and learning the nuances of the guys they had to block. Then they'd hit the weights together.

He was not a "typical" member of the 1991 Argos. He thought the Newjack pre-game dance-and-strut ritual the team happily indulged in that year was a "ridiculous" way to get ready to play. "My attitude was to be a robot," he told me. "I always had to be under control. Other players were more emotionally involved. That's not where my head is at. I'm in a zone. A totally different zone."

He stood up for his teammates, once getting ejected during the first quarter of an exhibition game (!) because he and Bob Skemp got into a fight with Tyrone Jones and Greg Battle. He also once threatened to lay a beating on Jones when the latter came into the Argo locker room looking for an autograph from Rocket Ismail.

He could also be rough on teammates, if they rubbed him the wrong way. He swore at Pinball the first time he met him because he could not believe any human could be that nice and that genuine. "I quickly learned, that is who he is," he told me. "Within a month I was like, this guy is for real. He is that positive about everything, about life." The day after the exhibition game ejection, he was groaning at practice. A teammate who shall remain nameless said, "Why are you tired? You didn’t even play." A glaring Schultz started towards the guy, and had to be calmed down by other teammates: "No, Schultzy, take it easy. He didn’t mean that, he’s just talking."

[Will]

This is terribly sad news. Chris was one of the greatest Argos of all time, and one of the greatest football broadcasters as well. He was an astute analyst whose insights helped shape (and some of which will appear in) my book about the Argos of the early 1990s. I interviewed him two or three times; each time I came away with much greater appreciation and/or perspective about some individual or issue we discussed.

A few other thoughts:

He was studious; long after the locker room had cleared out after practice, he and fellow tackle Kelvin Pruenster would be in there watching game film and learning the nuances of the guys they had to block. Then they'd hit the weights together.

He was not a "typical" member of the 1991 Argos. He thought the Newjack pre-game dance-and-strut ritual the team happily indulged in that year was a "ridiculous" way to get ready to play. "My attitude was to be a robot," he told me. "I always had to be under control. Other players were more emotionally involved. That's not where my head is at. I'm in a zone. A totally different zone."

He stood up for his teammates, once getting ejected during the first quarter of an exhibition game (!) because he and Bob Skemp got into a fight with Tyrone Jones and Greg Battle. He also once threatened to lay a beating on Jones when the latter came into the Argo locker room looking for an autograph from Rocket Ismail.

He could also be rough on teammates, if they rubbed him the wrong way. He swore at Pinball the first time he met him because he could not believe any human could be that nice and that genuine. "I quickly learned, that is who he is," he told me. "Within a month I was like, this guy is for real. He is that positive about everything, about life." The day after the exhibition game ejection, he was groaning at practice. A teammate who shall remain nameless said, "Why are you tired? You didn’t even play." A glaring Schultz started towards the guy, and had to be calmed down by other teammates: "No, Schultzy, take it easy. He didn’t mean that, he’s just talking."

Don't forget the Bruce Holmes hit on Rickey Foggie where Schultz stood up for his QB.

[jerrym]

I loved him on the field and in the booth.