THE CANADIAN PRESS
The fireworks had long since stopped and the contents of the cooler of Gatorade that met Ron Lancaster had hardened its way into the turf at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, where the Edmonton Eskimos had won the 81st Grey Cup.
With the fifth knee surgery of his career still ahead of him, Randy Ambrosie hobbled his way to the coaches’ room. He may not have known it fully at that moment, but the right guard’s nine-year CFL career was over and he wanted a moment with his boss.
“I can remember it so vividly. I wish I could remember everything that perfectly,” Ambrosie says early on Wednesday morning, shortly before he was officially named the CFL’s 14th commissioner.
“You just remember those little things. For me in Edmonton, one of the greatest men I’ve ever met in my life is Ron Lancaster.
“I went back to the coaches’ room and sat and talked with him for a while. I had that enormous satisfaction of knowing that not only had we won, not only was I going to get a Grey Cup ring, which I had wanted desperately from the start of my career, I did it with him. Those few words we exchanged at that time, I’ll never forget that moment how fantastic it was.”
The Waggle Extra: 1-on-1 with Commissioner Randy Ambrosie
James Cybulski talks to newly appointed CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie about his journey from player to successful businessman to CFL Commissioner.
Wednesday marked another one of those monumental, never-forget-it days for Ambrosie. His post-football-playing life has come full circle, taking him first from a secretary role with the CFLPA for two years, then into a career in business and finance that saw him eventually become president of AGF Funds, then president and chief financial officer at MacDougall, MacDougall and MacTier (3Macs).
Before he stepped into the spotlight of his first press conference as commissioner, he sat with the league’s VPs in a sunny corner office of Twitter Canada’s headquarters on King Street West in Toronto.
He spoke of the joy that this day brought him, that he felt it in the tips of his toes to be taking this job. As he said in his press conference, he wants to celebrate the players in this league and that he thinks they can drive its success. As a Stampeder, Argonaut and Eskimo, he slogged away for nine years in the anonymity of the CFL’s trenches. But as anyone who has spoken with an o-lineman can attest, it’s a position that requires an immense knowledge of what’s happening on the field around you. He knows what it takes to play in this league and has seen first-hand the skill that it takes to excel in it.
“I had a chance to play with some of the most unbelievable athletes that were capable of things that were beyond imagination,” he says. “This generation of players, I might argue are more talented. They’re bigger, they’re stronger, they’re faster.”
He told his new colleagues about a book he’d read, The Elusive Fan, that looks at the challenges that sports are facing today.
“(The book) speaks to the value of star power. One of the things that I’m really encouraged by is the quality of players playing the game today,” he says. “I’ve watched every minute of every game this season and I’m just overwhelmed by how talented these guys are and how much passion they play the game with.
“I think frankly, one of my priorities is to celebrate them. To tell Canadians who may not be football fans today that they should tune in and watch these people. I think everyone loves to see people do things well. That’s why we watch the Olympics. We love the idea of world-class performers performing at their very best. I think that’s what’s on display every time we have a CFL game. I’d like to encourage Canadians to tune in and watch these people. I think when they do they’re going to be blown away as I am just how great they are every day.”
While his size and smarts as a kid might have screamed o-lineman to those around him in his Winnipeg neighbourhood, Ambrosie didn’t find football until he was 14.
“It was my older brother Rod who told me to go play football. It was before the season started and it’d get me in great shape,” he recalls.
“My problem in hockey was that I was a really big guy and back in those days a really big guy was a recipe…fighting was a big part of the game.
“The stigma of being a big person meant that if you wanted to pursue a career in hockey you had to be prepared to lay down your gloves. A lot. Football didn’t have that. In football, being a big guy was just being a big guy.
“It was kind of like using (your size) for goodness, rather than evil, I guess,” he laughs. “It just somehow felt like the right place for me. I had some wonderful coaches who nurtured a desire to be the best I could be. Those early successes launched a lifetime love for the sport.”
He played seven-on-seven football for the Eastside Eagles in that bantam league and won co-MVP. He didn’t look back on the gridiron. He played at the University of Manitoba and was the second overall pick in the 1985 draft. He grew and learned in his nine years in the CFL, but thinks that he stayed consistent as a teammate.
“I like to think I was fun and I liked the guys I played with,” he says. “I never took myself too seriously. I was always having fun in the locker room at every level but I worked hard at my craft.”
The corporate world is different, but coming back to football unites two of his passions and allows him to re-connect with that idea of taking your work seriously but enjoying yourself at the same time.
Randy Ambrosie was named the 14th commissioner of the CFL at a press conference on Wednesday (CFL.ca)
“I want to be passionate, I want to be energetic,” he says of the type of commissioner he sees himself as.
“I want to bring to bear the skills and the business orientation that have been such a big part of my success. I really want to be pragmatic, but on a day to day basis I want people to know that I love the game and I love the league.
“I want to talk about the players all the time. I want people to say, ‘Oh my gosh, don’t put the microphone in front of this guy because he’s just going to talk about the players.’
“Way, way down the road when years have passed, I want to be someone that somebody might say, ‘He was always talking about other people. He was always celebrating other people. He was always happy for other people’s success’. If I can accomplish that, I think I’ll be able to look back with great pride on my time as the commissioner of the Canadian Football League.”
There’s almost a full schedule in front of him, but Ambrosie admits he’s thought a lot about the end of the season and what it’ll be like to be on the other side of a Grey Cup presentation.
“I know what it’s like to win the Grey Cup. My name is on the Grey Cup and I always tease my daughters about how cool I am because (the Grey Cup is) actually on the Canadian passport. I flip to that page and I’m like, ‘See? My name is on that,’” he says.
“To have a chance to turn it over to this year’s champions, knowing that the event of winning a Grey Cup will change their lives forever…no one will ever take away from them the fact that they’re Grey Cup champions. That’s going to be a special moment.”
