In the 1950s to early 1960’s, junior football thrived in the city of Winnipeg. The University of Manitoba Bisons had been a member of the Western Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union (WIRFU) since 1927, however they disbanded between 1949-58, re-instating football as a varsity sport in 1962. With this in mind, promising prospects who made it to the CFL were primarily filtered through the junior football league.
In 1953, the city had two programs playing at the Canadian junior level in the Winnipeg RODS (became the St. James RODS in 1959) and the Weston Wildcats. Both teams competed in the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Junior Football League, which was established that year. The winner advanced to the western final, and the national final afterwards.
The RODS (stands for Respect, Opportunity, Determination and Sportsmanship), under the leadership of head coach George Depres, were nothing short of dominant during the time period. He led the squad to five Canadian Junior National Championship games, winning three. Those three titles, won in 1955, 1956 and 1961, are the only three Canadian junior championships that the province has won.
John Gottfried was an offensive lineman on the ’61 roster, and looks back fondly on his time with the club.
“In those years of the 50’s especially, [the RODS] were really a feeder club to the Bombers,” he noted.
“Tons of guys made the jump from the RODS to the Bombers and were successful, especially some linemen, guys like Corner Piper (four-time Grey Cup champ, member of the ’55 and ’56 RODS) and Eddie Kotowich (seven-year CFL veteran, member of ’52 RODS) who ended up becoming CFL all-stars. They were all through that RODS’ program. It was quite a program.”
Gottfried played on the 1960 WHSFL Championship team at Kelvin High School, and was recruited to play for the RODS by assistant coach Lou Spado. The RODS’ offence at the time was patterned around certain US college teams that utilized athletic pulling guards who paved the way for the team’s backs, and Gottfried fit the mould. Making the roster was no easy task, especially considering how strong the program was at that time. Still, the agile hoggie was able to secure a spot.
“George had a system that he wanted to play with relatively small, but mobile linemen. I was a 190-pound guard, and he wanted running guards who were mobile and tough enough to meet his standard. I think of it as being in the right place at the right time,” Gottfried recalled.
“Even though the population was smaller at the time, I know with the RODS in the year that we won the national championship, we would have like 110 or 120 guys that would come out for tryouts. Competition for a spot on those teams was pretty high, and the interest in football from young men at the time was very high. In those years, no one had their face in an electronic pad or a telephone. Life was a lot different.”
The journey to Winnipeg’s last junior football championship
Under Depres – a former quarterback for the RODS who was also an assistant coach for the team while playing for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers – St. James finished first in the regular season.
“He really expected you to work your ass off, but at the same time he was really aware that these were young guys who needed to have fun too,” noted Gottfried of his former head coach.
“When we’d travel, he’d give us a fair amount of rope to have fun, but then when he said ‘okay boys, the party’s over, it’s time to play football now,’ he taught his players to settle down and become really serious and focused at the right time. He really was able to manage a group of 40 or so young men, and to motivate them at the right time.”
By the time the RODS made it to the western championship in Vancouver, they were battl tested. This was due in part to the gruelling two-game set they previously played against former conference champion Saskatoon, which they won by a combined total of 51-27 amidst a raucous crowd.
“By the time you went through playoffs, you were so beat up that you could barely walk. It was pretty rough,” says Gottfried.
“In Saskatoon, we actually sat on the sidelines in makeshift dugouts that you would see in a baseball game. That’s because the fans would throw stuff. They were the most avid fans you’d ever want to see. The players were sort of isolated from the fans for that reason. When we went to Regina or Saskatoon with the team, we travelled by train. We used to get two railroad cars, and I’ll tell you it was party city on the way home. It was a lot of fun.”
The RODS overcame wet conditions in BC, knocking off the Meralomas 21-8 to advance to the national final in Calgary. Then known as the Shrine Bowl, over 6000 fans packed McMahon Stadium to watch St. James take on the Montreal Rosemont Bombers, the eastern representative and defending national champs.
The RODS lived up to their “clenched fisters” nickname with an aggressive defensive performance. They sealed a 16-13 win by sacking Montreal pivot Bryan Murray twice late in the game as the Bombers were driving.
Legacy
The team, and their head coach’s legacy live on to this day. In 2009, the ’61 squad were inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, joining the two previous RODS squads that had won it all, along with Depres (inducted in 2006), who later revived the dormant U of M football program, winning the Western Canadian Championship in 1966.
“We went through hell together, and I saw none of them until 2009, so 49 years later. It was really nostalgic and just plain old fun to see how these guys had matured and grown old and so on,” says Gottfried.
“It was a wonderful ceremony, I really enjoyed it a lot. You almost had to say who you were, because you look a lot different when you’re 20 years old compared to when you’re 60 years old. It was a really unique experience. I was very happy that I had that opportunity.”