McMaster University Athletics

By Ian Speers

Beginnings—1887 to 1914

McMaster University was established as an outgrowth of the older Toronto Baptist College, receiving a university charter in 1887 and opening its doors to undergraduate students in the fall of 1890. The university’s first home was in Toronto’s McMaster Hall, constructed in 1881 for the Baptist College. McMaster Hall is better known today as the home of the Royal Conservatory of Music, located immediately east of Varsity Stadium on Bloor Street. A small gymnasium was built in the west end of the Hall’s basement, though the facility was converted into laboratory space not long after Mac attained university status.

Soccer was McMaster’s first major sport. In 1889, a group of alumni from the Toronto Baptist College played a challenge game against Woodstock College, a fellow Baptist institution, inaugurating an intercity rivalry that was carried on by McMaster students. A proper McMaster team played Woodstock for the first time on Nov. 7 1891, losing 2–1. The annual match between McMaster and Woodstock quickly became autumn’s prime athletic event and secured soccer’s importance at the young university. A hockey club organized in the winter of 1896–97 and a full-fledged athletic association followed in October 1897, bringing all sports and physical activities under a central executive committee.

Football—or rugby, as it was still called at the time—took longer to attain a foothold in McMaster’s athletic culture. The earliest reference to the sport at Mac appears in the Nov. 30, 1898 minutes of the athletic association’s executive meeting where they reviewed a letter “expressing the desire of a good many members of the association to play [football] and asking that the association provide them with a ball.” The matter was resolved at a subsequent meeting two days later, where a consensus emerged that the lateness of the season made it pointless to start the sport that year, and the request was refused. Football evidently grew within the student ranks over the next year and in the fall of 1899; J.A. McDonald was elected as the first team captain. A team of third- and fourth-year students beat a squad of freshmen and sophomores 10–5 in an intramural game, documented on Dec. 6, 1900.

By 1901, enough experience had been gained for McMaster to consider entering a team in an outside league. As Mac’s soccer and hockey teams were participating to some extent in the University of Toronto’s intramural leagues, the football team applied to enter the U of T Mulock Cup football series, held at U of T. Unfortunately the Mulock’s constitution and by-laws only permitted competition amongst teams consisting of Toronto students. McMaster was therefore ineligible to participate and their application was rejected. Undaunted, the team arranged three exhibition games in 1901, losing to U of T Dentistry 1–0, and later falling 12–5 to St. Michael’s College before defeating a mediocre city club, the Victorias, 22–6.

The following season, McMaster entered the intermediate division of the Canadian Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union (CIRFU). Founded in 1898, the CIRFU was the oldest direct ancestor of the current Ontario University Athletics (OUA). The intermediate level consisted of first teams from small universities like Guelph’s Ontario Agricultural College (OAC), or second teams from larger schools like Toronto or Queen’s. McMaster’s first intercollegiate season concluded very quickly, consisting of a sudden-death, 15–1 loss to the Varsity Blues at what is now Varsity Stadium. Scheduling for junior and intermediate intercollegiate teams in this era was markedly different from today’s tidy, eight-game regular season. Teams were placed in groups of between two and four teams and a group champion was decided by a seemingly ever-changing system of sudden-death games, round robins or home-and-home series. The group champion would advance to play another group champion, while the losing teams would keep occupied with whatever exhibition games they could arrange. Out of league play for the rest of the fall, McMaster emerged from 1902 with the small but noteworthy triumph of defeating Royal Military College 16–5 in a Nov. exhibition game.

In 1903 and 1904, McMaster improved on its inaugural showing to win the Toronto group, dispatching U of T and Trinity College to advance on the Kingston group winners—Queen’s in ’03 and RMC in ’04. Mac split the home-and-home Kingston series with a 1–1 record each year, but lost both championships on total points. Despite such disappointment, in just four years of actively playing football, McMaster had shown remarkable growth and improvement. But for the rest of the pre-war years, McMaster found itself unable to take down the powerful Varsity Blues, which had the advantage of a systematic intramural league from which to draw players, and an experienced senior team to help train their intermediates. The decade did see the birth of McMaster’s long-standing rivalry with the OAC Aggies (now the University of Guelph). Playing home-and-home games as part of the 1907 CIRFU intermediate series, Mac twice defeated the Aggies to start a rivalry that became particularly fierce from the 1930s through the 1960s.

McMaster’s small physical size complicated their field arrangements. McMaster Hall’s original lot was just 250 feet square—enough space for a university building, and precious little else. Mac had a small field located on Chicora Avenue, just south of Avenue Road and Dupont Avenue, provided to the athletic association by the Board of Governors in 1899. Home games were often played at Rosedale Field, a stadium of about 5,000 seats located about a mile from McMaster Hall, or on one of U of T’s fields. At the very least a McMaster field allowed for convenient practice schedules and minimal travel time. In early April 1910, the McMaster athletic association learned that the University had sold its one and only playing field. Returning in the fall, the athletes found that no firm arrangements had been made for a practice field. It was not until Oct. 7, one day before their first scheduled game, that a field could be booked elsewhere. The team decided to withdraw from the CIRFU schedule for that year and returned to the intercollegiate circuit in 1911, having secured Rosedale Field for games and practices. However, the lack of a nearby field complicated practice arrangements, and perhaps contributed to Mac’s 0-2 showing in the group round-robin.

A lack of coaching and athletic organization became an increasing handicap to McMaster and was identified as such by the McMaster University Monthly in 1914. There was no McMaster football coach until after World War One, so the team captain was largely responsible for organizing practices and training his teammates. Doubtless the occasional enthusiast or alumnus offered words of wisdom to the current team, but there was no outside hand to guide student-athletes in preparing for competition. McMaster was also suffering from divided interest among the fall field sports as McMaster had both football and soccer teams, an ambitious undertaking for a university of its size.

McMaster was also vulnerable to player injuries. Being a small university with only a few hundred students enrolled per year, the talent pool for reserve players was shallow indeed. In 1913, McMaster was forced to default the second half of its schedule after two players were injured and could not be replaced. A similar situation arose in 1920 when four players were injured in the opening two games, leaving McMaster to forfeit the remaining four CIRFU contests. With no convenient practice field, non-existent coaching, divided interests, and a small student body on which to draw, McMaster’s football team was operating at a severe disadvantage.

Intercollegiate play suspended after the 1914 season while World War One occupied the minds of the entire planet. With the Officers’ Training Corps providing three afternoons a week of military drills, football practices fell by the wayside and the league suspended operations until the close of hostilities.

Growth and Relocation—1919 to 1939

League play resumed in 1919, and McMaster dropped down to the junior division of CIRFU. The junior circuit placed Mac in league with the likes of OAC’s second team and Toronto’s third team, resulting in a certain loss of prestige, but also affording McMaster football the opportunity to regroup and reorganize itself.

The ’20s were an inconsistent decade for McMaster. Responding to criticisms from the pre-war period, coaching finally became an assigned position, with E.G.H. Worden guiding the team for the first four years of the decade. Under coach Worden, McMaster narrowly lost its group championship to Toronto in 1921, and succeeded in taking the group honours in 1922. Worden’s departure after the 1923 season was followed by three winless years in the intercollegiate circuit. Reverend Earle K. Smith, nicknamed the “Fighting Parson” from his days with the Toronto Balmy Beach football team, took over coaching the football squad in 1926. In his three-year stint at the controls, Smith returned McMaster to winning form, narrowly losing the 1928 group title to Toronto in a 3–1 sudden death playoff. The following season, CIRFU introduced age restrictions on junior players, forcing McMaster back into the intermediate loop. With most of the previous season’s team returning, the 1929 squad managed a commendable 3–3 record, setting the stage for greater successes in the 1930s.

The cumulative inadequacies of the small Toronto campus finally became enough for McMaster and by the late 1920s the university had decided to relocate to a large campus in west-end Hamilton. The move to Hamilton during the summer of 1930 finally afforded McMaster top-notch playing fields for its athletic programmes. Two practice fields, one for men and another for women, and separate soccer and football grounds were an infinite improvement over the nomadic existence McMaster athletes had to endure in Toronto. A new city also brought the university’s first director of the newly formed Department of Athletics and Physical Education in Arthur Burridge. Burridge was a McMaster alumnus from 1915 who had already made a name for himself as the first full-time head of a physical education department in Ontario, at Ottawa’s Glebe Collegiate. He assisted for a couple of years with the McGill Redmen, seeing them to a Yates Cup championship in 1928. “Chief”, as he was commonly known at McMaster, took over football head coaching duties, as well as helming his beloved basketball team.

McMaster inaugurated its new campus field on Oct. 18, 1930 with a 14–3 victory over the Western intermediates, but the remainder of the season’s home games (and, indeed, all games but for rare exceptions until 1949) were moved to the Hamilton Amateur Athletics Association grounds on Charlton Avenue. Quarterback Wilf Paterson, a fourth-year veteran, led the 1930 squad. Paterson went on to become Mac’s first star contribution to the CFL, playing with the Hamilton Tigers in the 1930s, quarterbacking the tabbies in the 1935 Grey Cup game. He later returned to McMaster as the university’s long-time bursary and student awards officer.

The new season and locale heralded a decade of strength for McMaster, which finished the regular season undefeated in four games and bettered Loyola (today part of Concordia University in Montreal) in the CIRFU semi-final. RMC finally downed Mac 18–10 in the league championship game, but the football squad was able to look back on what was unquestionably its strongest showing in three decades of play.

McMaster and OAC battled each other for their intermediate group title for the rest of the 1930s, dramatically increasing the rivalry between the two teams. McMaster emerged victorious in 1931 and 1934, and captured the overall CIRFU intermediate title in 1934 by defeating the Varsity Blues. Burridge handed off the football coaching duties to Fred Veale in 1933, allowing “Chief” more time to focus on basketball and administrative tasks. Veale led the team for two years and departed after the 1934 championship season, passing the torch to Glen Small.

Mac repeated its championship run in 1935, going 6–0 in group play before defeating RMC 25–13 in the CIRFU championship. Leading McMaster to its consecutive championships was backfielder Syl Apps (1932 to 1935). At the time, Apps was equally well known as a track and field star who had captured a gold medal in pole vault at the 1934 Empire Games, and went onto place sixth in the 1936 Olympics. His subsequent career in hockey with the Toronto Maple Leafs earned him induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

McMaster again captured the CIRFU intermediate title in 1937, beating Queen’s 22–2 at the HAAA grounds. A rookie quarterback named Ivor Wynne suited up in ’37 for his first of three seasons in the maroon and grey. Mac remained competitive in the last two years of the decade, finishing 4–2 in each campaign, but the decade’s championship count stalled at three. The intervention of World War Two suspended intercollegiate play after the 1939 season. McMaster fielded occasional teams for wartime games against local clubs and even won the Hamilton junior league championship in 1943. Mac’s wartime squads included Jack Gurney, who later worked his way through refereeing circles to become the referee-in-chief of the CIAU. But intercollegiate play would have to wait until 1945 for a revival.

Ambition and Determination—1945 to 1953

Intercollegiate football returned in the fall of 1945, and McMaster came out with a strong start, winning the west division intermediate championship. Annual playoffs between the east and west division champions were not revived after the war, so there was no overall CIRFU playoff. The promising beginning was followed by three winless seasons, including a 1947 team that featured future MP and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Lincoln Alexander.

Football alumnus Ivor Wynne replaced Arthur Burridge as the university’s Director of Athletics and Physical Education in 1948, and his football ambitions quickly came to the fore. In 1949, Wynne moved the home games from the venerable HAAA grounds, which dated back to the 1870s, to the larger and more modern Civic Stadium in east-end Scott Park. The McMaster team nickname changed from the Maroons in the ’30s and ’40s to the Rams from 1945 to 1948 to the Marauders in 1949.

Wynne felt that McMaster students should have the right to compete in the CIRFU’s Senior Intercollegiate Football League (SIFL), consisting of McGill, Queen’s, Toronto, and Western. These schools were collectively known as the Old Four. The SIFL had remained exclusive, not expanding since Western was admitted in 1929 and never growing above four teams despite occasional protests from McMaster and OAC going back to the mid-1930s. To some, Wynne’s dream seemed ludicrous: between 1945 and 1949, the Marauders had won just five league games. Surely they would be humiliated in the SIFL, playing against larger schools with an established record in senior football. With the support of McGill, McMaster applied for entry into the SIFL for the 1950 season. Scheduling problems and Mac’s lack of recent success on the playing field caused concerns, and the application was soundly rejected.

As if on cue, Mac had an undefeated 6–0 season in 1950, winning its final intermediate crown. The 1950 squad had a number of future CFL players on its roster, including halfback Mel Hawkrigg (Hamilton, 1952) and fullback Alex Ponton Jr. (Ottawa, 1952–53; Toronto, 1954–60; Montreal, 1960). Wynne felt the time was right to make his move and, after being rejected by the SIFL for a second straight year, entered the 1951 Marauders in the Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU), a semi-pro senior league established in 1883. While ORFU had been in a state of decline since the late 1930s, in 1951 it was only slightly below the proto-CFL conferences in prestige and professionalism, and the league champion was assured a berth in a Grey Cup semi-final. Wynne was determined to prove that McMaster could hold its own against senior teams.

Al Smith took over the coaching duties in 1951. A soft-spoken man, affectionately known as “Silent Al” or “Easy Al” by his players, Smith had been a star passer and kicker with OAC in the late 1930s, and played briefly with the Argos in 1940 before spending four and a half years overseas as an air gunner. After the war, he served as a successful football and basketball coach at Ottawa Technical School before coming to McMaster as a full-time staff member in physical education and athletics. While McMaster posted just a 2–4 record in ORFU play, the team’s showing was respectable considering it was their first year playing at a senior level and that they were fielding a fully amateur student squad against professionals and imports. In the final game of the season on Oct. 27, the Marauders blasted the Windsor Rockets 50–6. This game saw Mel Hawkrigg (McMaster University’s current chancellor) score six touchdowns and boot five converts.

Mac had proven itself capable of competing at the senior level. For 1952, the SIFL agreed to let the Marauders into the league on a trial basis. McMaster would play McGill twice and all other teams once, with the games not counting officially toward the SIFL standings. Mac was therefore ineligible to win the Yates Cup.

Graduation had taken some of the stars from the 1950 and 1951 squads. Lorne Wrigglesworth, an all-purpose player who was equally comfortable as a quarterback, halfback, and kicker, proved to be one of the top returning players. McMaster won none of the trial games in ’52, but their level of play was high enough that the SIFL granted them full membership for 1953. Player departures further thinned McMaster’s veteran ranks in ’53. Wrigglesworth remained to anchor the team, but the Marauders’ first season as full-fledged members of the SIFL was a winless exercise.

The two-year experiment in the SIFL had given McMaster increased prestige, but caused aggravation for the other league members. Trying to schedule five teams into a six-game schedule posed some obstacles. The university term did not start until the end of September, so only seven or eight weeks were available for league play before the athletes would be in the midst of term papers and exams. Old four schools were generally opposed to much more than a six-game schedule on academic grounds. SIFL had traditionally scheduled based on a double-round robin format, allowing all four of its teams home-and-home series against each other. The entry of a fifth team upset this balance, and meant that each team would play two opponents twice per season, and the other two just once per season. It was a seemingly trivial problem, but proved costly to other schools, and was ultimately fatal to McMaster’s survival in the SIFL.

Fans simply did not come out to see McMaster play in the same quantities as they did for the traditional teams. Both Queen’s and U of T complained of a decline in season ticket subscriptions in 1953, Toronto claiming a drop of some 28 per cent. The 1954 schedule would have had U of T hosting McMaster and giving up a chance to host Western. The U of T Athletic Association estimated that the loss in ticket sales of this arrangement would have cost them between $15,000 and $20,000, no small sum for 1954. Queen’s similarly would have given up the chance to host Toronto—traditionally their biggest draw of the year—and feared that such financial losses would destroy their financial stability. Football gate receipts were the main revenue source for these athletic associations in the 1950s. That McMaster might improve its drawing power after a few years in the senior circuit was immaterial: the Old Four schools believed they needed cash up front to keep their operations solvent. Toronto and Queen’s led the charge to revert to a four-team league. Over the protestations of McGill, the SIFL voted McMaster out of the league in January 1954.

McMaster and its supporters were understandably irate. “McMaster Ouster Niftiest Double-Cross since Brutus Slipped Caesar the Knife,” read one headline in The Canadian Football News. Where Toronto and Queen’s saw preserving financial security, McMaster saw an outright slap in the face. McMaster had been unceremoniously tossed from the league not because of its inability to compete, but squarely on the grounds that it was not popular enough. The expulsion left an understandably bitter taste in McMaster’s mouth. The incident alienated a number of smaller schools with intercollegiate programs, and was a contributing factor in a massive restructuring of Ontario and Quebec intercollegiate athletics in 1955.

In the fall of 1954, a freshman from Hamilton’s Westdale Collegiate named Russ Jackson enrolled at McMaster as an undergraduate math student. Jackson’s reputation as a quarterback led to his being heavily recruited by all of the Old Four schools, but coach Smith’s soft-spoken “Silent Al” personally sold Jackson on remaining in Hamilton for his university education. Mere months after McMaster had been forcefully removed from the SIFL, they had on their roster an athlete who became arguably the best Canadian quarterback of the half-century.

McMaster spent 1954 through 1956 regrouping by arranging exhibition games and staying away from league affiliations. Showing an interest in developing football teams, the 1954 Marauders made a weekend trip to Nova Scotia where they played the H.M.C.S. Shearwater military team and the St. Francis Xavier X-Men. Canadian football in the Maritimes was less than a decade old, and the trip marked one of the earliest acknowledgments of eastern teams by an established football club in central Canada. McGill, no doubt in a show of sympathy for McMaster’s poor treatment by the SIFL, and Toronto, perhaps likewise as a form of atonement, arranged regular exhibition contests with the Marauders. Traditional rivals OAC arranged annual home-and-home series, and McMaster arranged some games with American colleges.

After seven years at Civic Stadium, a survey of students and alumni conducted in early 1956 showed a desire to bring football games to the university campus. The cross-town commute was inconvenient for students and alumni yearned for a regular opportunity to return to campus. The site that had previously been designated the soccer field was prepared as a main event field with temporary seating for the football season brought over from the campus drill hall. A field house was added in 195, and the site became established as the home of Marauder football for the next half-century, taking the name Les Prince Field in 1983.

By the mid-’50s, McMaster was not alone in its frustration over the SIFL’s stranglehold on the “senior intercollegiate” banner. OAC (Guelph), Waterloo, Ottawa, Carleton, and RMC were all competing at an intermediate level. Carleton and Waterloo were relatively recent additions to the football scene, but the other schools had clubs that had been established in the nineteenth century. After McMaster’s experiment with the SIFL, none held out any hope of being elevated to senior status in the established league. As a reaction, they established the Ontario Intercollegiate Football Conference in 1957, a league independent of the SIFL. In Russ Jackson’s final season in the maroon and grey, the Marauders captured the inaugural OIFC title with a spotless 7–0 record, winning four of those games as shutouts.

Throughout the late ’50s and early ’60s, McMaster was a dominant force in the OIFC, sharing the league championship with OAC in 1958. Rarely was the team ever found below second place in league play. Al Smith gave up the coaching chores after the 1960 season, passing the torch to Bob Dawson, a former defensive back and quarterback with the Ti-Cats of the late ’50s. Dawson led the Marauders to three consecutive league titles from 1962 to 1964, leading to some renewed agitation for parity with the SIFL.

After winning its third straight OIFC championship with a perfect league record in 1964, McMaster again decided to remind the SIFL of its existence. After league reorganization in 1955, McMaster athletics had ended up a member of the Ontario-Quebec Athletic Association (O-QAA), and competed in that organization’s leagues in most sports save football. The O-QAA also administered the SIFL. Using a little-known O-QAA rule, McMaster challenged the SIFL champion Queen’s Golden Gaels to a single-game playoff for the Yates Cup. The challenge was entirely in order, but Queen’s was not amused. The year before, the Gaels had lost an unofficial national football championship to the Alberta Golden Bears. With their Yates Cup championship in hand for ’64, the Gaels were looking forward to a rematch and, they hoped, revenge. Queen’s administration at the time had an ironclad rule that they could only play a single post-season game, so by playing McMaster, Queen’s would give up any hope of settling scores with Alberta. Frank Tindall and the Gaels vented their collective frustration by defeating the Marauders 63–6 at Kingston. A week later, the Saint Mary’s Huskies downed Mac in the Atlantic Bowl.

Coach Dawson finished his tenure at McMaster in 1965 with a respectable 4–3 showing, handing the helm over to Jack Kennedy for 1966. Coach Kennedy was a former head hockey coach and football assistant with the Varsity Blues in the ’50s and early ’60s, winning six Queen’s Cup hockey titles while at Toronto. He had served since 1962 as the athletic director and football and hockey coach at Loyola College in Montreal. Kennedy’s first effort as Marauder head coach produced a 6–1 record in what had been renamed the Central Canada Intercollegiate Football Conference (CCIFC), but the single loss gave the league championship to the Waterloo Lutheran Golden Hawks.

1967 gave every appearance of being a year of destiny for McMaster football. Before the season started, the Marauders learned that they and Waterloo would gain admission to the SIFL in 1968, fulfilling 20 years of determination. To nail home the point that it was ready to compete in the prestigious league, McMaster scored a 17–15 pre-season victory over the Varsity Blues. Toronto went on to win the Yates Cup in an undefeated regular season. More than a few of Mac’s ’67 players had been on the 1966 CCIFC champion Waterloo Lutheran Golden Hawks squad. At the time, McMaster offered a one-year, post-graduate physical education degree, and so some 16 players from Lutheran and elsewhere took advantage of the lack of any real transfer restrictions to add weight to the roster. One such transfer player was all-star quarterback Dick Waring, a native of Sarnia who had previously played NCAA football with Bowling Green.

Mac dominated the CCIFC in ’67 by winning all seven league games, including five shutouts. It avenged its two previous Atlantic Bowl defeats by sneaking past St. Francis Xavier 7–0 to earn a berth in the Vanier Cup against the Alberta Golden Bears. The Vanier Cup had been inaugurated in 1965 as an invitational bowl game, but 1967 marked the first time the game was formally recognised as a national championship game with systematic playoffs. The game itself was a defensive battle, dominated by turnovers. McMaster trailed by one point in the final minutes and penetrated the Alberta zone to the 17-yard line. A game-winning field goal seemed inevitable for the Marauders but rather than take a safe running play to kill time, Waring baffled nearly 16,000 in attendance by letting off a quick pass. The ball fell into the waiting arms of Alberta defensive guard John Wilson, leaving the Marauders on the losing end of a 10–9 score.

By the end of 1967, two decades of ambition and determination had finally paid off for McMaster. Refusing to give up on Ivor Wynne’s vision of the Marauders playing senior football, the team was poised to enter the prestigious SIFL. McMaster had proven, by coming within seconds of winning the Vanier Cup, that elite senior football was not the sole domain of the Old Four schools.

1968 to 1996

The graduation of the one-year phys. ed. students in the spring of 1968 removed the core of the championship roster, leaving McMaster weakened for its first three years in the SIFL. Ray Johnson, a former Western Mustangs all-star lineman who was drafted by the Edmonton Eskimos in 1958, became the new Marauder head coach in 1969. His first two seasons were clearly rebuilding affairs.

The 1970s proved a decade of change. Now that McMaster had succeeded in breaking the Old Four’s lock on the senior circuit, the gates had been opened to more systematic reform. In 1971, all men’s athletics departments in Ontario universities joined forces in a single league, the Ontario Universities Athletic Association (OUAA). The OUAA finally did away with the patchworks and hierarchies of a number of different leagues, organizations and gentleman’s agreements that had operated in the past, finally bringing about the sort of egalitarian structure that Ivor Wynne had sought since the late ’40s. Les Prince, Wynne’s right-hand man as assistant director for twenty years and successor in 1965, provided consistent help and support along the way. Sadly, Wynne had died in his early fifties in 1970, making it altogether tragic that he never saw such an arrangement brought fully to fruition. He had nevertheless been a major player in upsetting the athletic exclusivity of the Old Four schools. McMaster dedicated its athletic centre, and Hamilton its stadium, to honour his memory and his tireless efforts.

The new league started off well for McMaster, finishing first in the Central division before losing out in the first week of playoffs. But the football squad was kept out of the playoffs for all but one year (1974) in the next decade, never once finishing above fourth place during that time. Ray Johnson was the head coach throughout the decade, except for 1972 when Jack Kennedy reprised the role while Johnson was on sabbatical.

While lacking in team successes, the 1970s had no shortage of outstanding players in the maroon and grey. Running back Ross Tripp provided the driving force for McMaster’s offence from 1973 through 1976, becoming the first player to break 2,000 career rushing yards as a Marauder (2084 yards). In 1974 he became the first Marauder to be named the OUAA football MVP. Ron Southwick switched from tight end to linebacker for his senior year (1974). Southwick proved a natural on defence, securing a spot on the 1974 all-Canadian squad with five interceptions and going on to a seven-year CFL career as a linebacker with Winnipeg and Toronto.

After 12 seasons at the helm, Ray Johnson retired as Marauder head coach after the 1980 campaign. His replacement was Bernie Custis, a Ti-Cat quarterback from the 1950s who had earlier coaching success, first with Sheridan College, then the Burlington Braves of the CJFL. Custis’ arrival coincided with that of quarterback Phil Scarfone, a Hamilton native from St. Thomas More High School. Scarfone proved the most outstanding quarterback McMaster had seen since Russ Jackson. In 1982, he and Custis led the team to their first winning season in over a decade, and first playoff appearance since 1974, earning the Frank Tindall Trophy as the CIAU football coach of the year. The following season, Scarfone led the Marauders their first Yates Cup appearance since 1964, against the Varsity Blues. McMaster built up a 16–7 lead against Toronto over the first three quarters, only to surrender 13 fourth-quarter points to lose the league title 20–16.
After a heartbreaking turn in the ’83 Yates Cup, the 1984 Marauders secured the team’s first undefeated regular season since 1967. Scarfone played four games of his final with a broken jaw, but still ended up leading the country in passing with 2010 yards. A stunning semi-final upset by Guelph (the eventual Vanier Cup champion) knocked McMaster out of the playoffs, but Scarfone’s tenacity and leadership earned him the Hec Crighton Trophy as the outstanding player in Canadian university football for 1984—a first for McMaster.

Scarfone’s departure led to a plateau in McMaster’s success. For the next four seasons, McMaster consistently fielded a competitive team that consistently fought for the OUAA’s fourth and final playoff spot.

In 1989, McMaster hired a full-time football coach to replace the part-time Custis, looking to Steve Bruno to lead the team. Bruno brought with him a good reputation from his six previous seasons heading the Mount Allison Mounties. He led the Mounties to their first Vanier Cup appearance in 1984, losing to the Guelph Gryphons. Steve also earned the Frank Tindall Trophy as CIAU coach of the year in 1984. Unfortunately, his success with Mount Allison did not follow him westward, and the team hovered between fifth and seventh place during his five-year tenure. Bruno was responsible for bringing wide receiver Mike Morreale to McMaster in 1991.

To replace Steve Bruno, the Marauders looked to Al Bruno (no relation), a veteran of nearly 40 years coaching experience. Al headed the Ti-cats coaching staff from 1983 to 1990, capturing a Grey Cup and CFL Coach of the Year honours in 1986 and appearing in three more Grey Cup games in 1984, 1985 and 1989. His was a familiar face on the local sport scene, and hope ran high that he could return McMaster to past glory.

Al Bruno’s tenure started off well enough in 1994. The team posted a 3–4 record, which placed them in a three-way tie for the OUAA’s fourth and final playoff spot. The tie-breaker went in Toronto’s favour, but the improved record made fans hope for a return to post-season play the next year. The majority of starters returned in 1995, but a critical loss to graduation was Mike Morreale, a second-team all-Canadian in 1994 who landed with the Toronto Argonauts in ’95 at the start of a still-successful CFL career. The team dropped to 2–6 in Bruno’s second season before plummeting to a winless 1996 showing. Al Bruno departed as head coach following the 1996 campaign, a highly respected and well-liked coach who was simply unable to turn the team around.

Golden Age—1997 to 2010

In January 1997, under the leadership of President and Vice Chancellor, Dr. Peter George and Director of Athletics and Recreation Thérèse Quigley, McMaster announced the hiring of Greg Marshall as head football coach. Marshall brought with him an impressive resume as both a coach and player. As a player, Greg had been a running back with the Mustangs from 1978 to 1981, winning he Hec Crighton trophy in 1980 before going onto an injury-shortened CFL career with Edmonton. He had been on the coaching staff of the Western Mustangs from 1984 to 1996, serving the final five seasons as offensive coordinator. He knew success as a coach, earning two Vanier Cup rings and making three further appearances during his 13 seasons in London. Western was renowned for its recruiting machine which provided its consistent on-field product, and Marshall brought these valuable insights to McMaster at a time when they were desperately needed.

Another new face in 1997 was a young quarterback out of Trinity College School named Ben Chapdelaine. Passing had been an area of concern coming into camp. In 1996, Mac quarterbacks had thrown just three touchdowns alongside 16 interceptions. Chapdelaine played backup for the first four games, seeing limited action before making a breakthrough impression in week five against Windsor. Taking over midway through the third quarter, Chapdelaine marshalled a come-from-behind victory over the Lancers, capping it off with a 76-yard touchdown strike to sophomore wide receiver Ryan Janzen in the final minute of play. The 31–25 victory broke an 18-game losing streak, and earned Chapdelaine the starting spot.

Forming a strong passing connection with Janzen and fellow wide receiver Mike Linton, Chapdelaine helped engineer a late-season victory over the Varsity Blues and closed the season with a 35–35 tie versus the always-powerful Western Mustangs. Chapdelaine walked away with rookie of the year honours in the OUA (as the OUAA became in 1997), and despite his late start, ranked fourth in the league in passing. Janzen, who had never played football in high school, led the league in receiving with 697 yards. The team’s 2–5–1 record was nothing spectacular, but it marked an important start.

Joining the McMaster offensive arsenal in 1998 was Kojo Aidoo, a running back from Oakville. Aidoo and third-year running back Chris Dorrington helped buttress the Marauder ground game, allowing the team to break 1,000 yards on the ground for the first time since 1991. Chapdelaine shattered Phil Scarfone’s team passing records, gaining 2,428 yards. More importantly, McMaser’s 4–4 record gave the team its first playoff berth since 1986. Playing a semi-final against the number-one ranked Western Mustangs, McMaster nearly scored an upset in a see-saw battle that saw a Maruader rally late in the game. McMaster turnovers ultimately proved the deciding factor, but the 34–32 score against the league powerhouse made it clear that McMaster was quickly becoming a legitimate contender. Aidoo was named the winner of the Peter Gorman Trophy as the top football rookie in Canada, and Chapdelaine earned OUA MVP honours.

A young running back from Belleville named Kyle Pyear joined the McMaster offence for the start of the 1999 campaign, giving McMaster even more firepower. McMaster improved to 6–2 in 1999, placing third in OUA play, but were knocked out of the playoffs by Laurier in the league semi-final. While the team did not advance to the Yates Cup, McMaster was becoming a threat after three years of consistent rebuilding under Greg Marshall. McMaster was laying the foundation for the new millennium.

The 2000 Marauders had one of the most balanced and talent-rich offences in team history. Playing his final year in the maroon and grey, receiver Ryan Janzen set a new OUA single-season record with 1,034 receiving yards. On the ground, Kojo Aidoo set a new league rushing record of 1,329 yards in a season and twenty rushing touchdowns, good enough to earn him a Hec Crighton Trophy as the most outstanding player in Canadian university football. Losing only to Western in the regular season, McMaster posted a first-place finish for the first time since 1984. In the Yates Cup, Laurier fell 48–23 to give the Marauders their first OUA football title. A fourth-quarter rally against Ottawa in the following weekend’s Churchill Bowl was not enough for the Marauders to secure a berth in the Vanier Cup, but McMaster had once again tasted the success its football team.

Running back Jesse Lumsden, the son of former Ottawa Gee-Gees and CFL great Neil Lumsden, joined McMaster in 2001, adding yet more talent to the depth chart behind Kojo Aidoo and Kyle Pyear. The team went undefeated in the regular season, with only a 21–21 tie against Waterloo standing between them and perfection. McMaster avenged the previous year’s Churchill Bowl defeat at the hands of the Gee-Gees, downing Ottawa (now an OUA member) 30–22 in the Yates Cup. In the Churchill Bowl in Winnipeg, Manitoba wore down the Mac defenders to score three unanswered touchdowns in the fourth quarter, frustrating McMaster’s Vanier Cup ambitions with a 27–6 defeat. The heartbreaking loss was the final university game for Ben Chapdelaine, marking the end of a five-year career that had done so much to return the Marauders to a position of respect and credibility. Chapdelaine finished his career with a new CIS record of 9,974 career passing yards and was named the 2001 Hec Crighton Trophy winner.

Without Chapdelaine, the 2002 Marauders turned to their running backs to lead the offence. Injuries sidelined Jesse Lumsden for much of the season, leaving Kyle Pyear to carry the rushing load on his own. Pyear led the CIS with 1,227 rushing yards and helped boost McMaster to a perfect 8–0 regular season. The playoffs were highlighted by a 7,000-plus crowd at Les Prince Field that witnessed McMaster demolish Queen’s 33–19 in the Yates Cup final, giving Mac three straight OUA titles. Again Mac was in the Churchill Bowl, but they were unable advance to the coveted Vanier Cup, succumbing this time to the Saint Mary’s Huskies.

With Lumsden healthy and Pyear in his final season, the McMaster ground game had never been better than it was in 2003. The team broke 2,000 rushing yards for the first time and established a new OUA record of 2,807 yards in the process. Another undefeated season followed, and McMaster crushed Laurier in the Yates Cup. Because of poor field conditions on campus, playoff games were moved to Ivor Wynne Stadium where McMaster enjoyed its largest home crowds (12,464) to date. The Mitchell Bowl against Laval was undoubtedly the most closely contested of Mac’s four straight CIS semi-final appearances, noteworthy for a dominating second-half performance by rookie Marauder quarterback Adam Archibald. But the result was no more favourable than in previous years.
Head coach Greg Marshall accepted an offer to become head coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats after the 2003 season. In doing so, Marshall became the first coach to make the jump from CIS to CFL head coaching since legendary Ted Reeve ascended from Queen’s to the Montreal Alouettes before the 1939 season. Marshall’s replacement was Marcello Campanaro, an assistant since 1997 who had handled the quarterbacks and was also a former Marauder in 1981.

After three seasons sharing the offensive spotlight with Kyle Pyear and others, Jesse Lumsden emerged as a star in 2004. Closing in on a number of single-season and career rushing records, Lumsden’s on-field efforts brought the Marauders an unprecedented level of media attention throughout the entire season. He established new CIS single-season records of 1,816 yards and 21 touchdowns, and an OUA career record of 43 majors. He also set an OUA career mark of 4,138 rushing yards. Lumsden stood behind an offensive line that placed four of its five starters on the OUA all-star teams. The team finished in second place, losing its first regular season game since 2000 to Laurier. The Golden Hawks later defeated them in the Yates Cup, preventing the Marauders from becoming the first team to win five straight Yates titles. Lumsden was duly honoured with the Hec Crighton Trophy and subsequently the Borden Ladiner Gervais Award as the top male athlete in the CIS. He then signed a free agent contract with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.

The “Post-Lumsden” era began in 2005 and the Marauder offense did not miss a beat. Using an attack that relied more on the strengths of quarterback Adam Archibald and a deep receiving corps, the offence averaged 321 passing yards and 184 rushing yards in eight regular-season and two playoff games, first and sixth in the country respectively. The 505 total yards of offence per game also put MAC atop the CIS. Despite the potent offense the Marauders finished the regular season with a 5-3 record. It was the first season since 1999 that the team had lost more than one game.

A deep Laurier squad defeated the Marauders in the OUA semi-finals, and eventually the Golden Hawks won the Vanier Cup. Following the season, Laurier offensive coordinator Stefan Ptaszek was hired to lead the Marauders as Head Coach. His innovative play calling and design was a staple at Laurier and has helped the Marauder offence reach even newer heights since 2006. 2005 Marauder grads Jason Pottinger and Tristan Clovis joined the CFL ranks following their time at MAC.

Play at Les Prince Field, the home of the Marauders since 1956, was suspended following the 2004 season to make way for the addition to the Ivor Wynne Centre, the David Braley Athletic Centre.

McMaster played across town at Ivor Wynne Stadium in 2005 and continued to do so through the 2007 season before returning to campus to play at the new Ronald V. Joyce Stadium in the fall of 2008.

The Marauders opened the stadium on September 13, 2008 in front of 4,000 fans against the Ottawa Gee Gees. Despite the Gee-Gees winning the contest 22- 19, fans enjoyed pregame performances by the McMaster University Choir, and the Burlington Teen Tour Band alongside of a thrilling pyrotechnics display and multiple video tributes on the stadium’s video scoreboard. Ryan Fantham moved in as the starting quarter back for the Marauders after the graduation of Adam Archibald. Fantham completed 130 of 226 for 1708 yards and 13 touchdowns in his eight conference games of 2008. McMaster first team All-Canadian Mike Bradwell returned from an injury he sustained in the spring to make eight catches for 108 yards to lead McMaster to a 27-19 victory over the Toronto Varsity Blues on October 3. In a game where Toronto was whistled for the third greatest penalty yardage in the OUA dating back to 1976 (12 penalties for 207 yards), Joey Nemet rushed for over one hundred yards for the second consecutive game. In front of 4,711 fans on October 18, 2008 the Marauders defeated the Windsor Lancers on Homecoming Weekend 40-11 to advance to the OUA quarter-finals. Nemet ran a career high of 172 yards on 20 carries and was named The Score University Rush Player of the Game for his efforts. At the quater-finals in Waterloo the Laurier Golden Hawks swept the Marauders 29-0 to eliminate them from the post season.

Simon Binder was named a two time OUA All-Star in 2008 as both a first team rush/cover and a second team linebacker. Joining him on the second team squad was Mike Hoy, Kevin D’Hollander, Joey Nemet and James Edwards.

The Toronto Argonauts secured some of their young Candian talent by locking up 2008 CFL Draft picks WR Bradwell and OL Chris Van Zeyl. The Argos made Bradwell the 13th overall (second round) pick in the Draft. Bradwell attended the Argos’ 2008 training camp before returning to McMaster for the 2008 season where he played four games and caught 23 passes for 277 yards and two touchdowns. Van Zeyl was a former draft pick of the Montreal Alouettes.

Making History —2011 to present

The 2011 McMaster Football team came into the season, knowing that it could be a special year. With a returning cast that had come close, but fallen short in the OUA playoffs, the Marauders knew they were in position to take the next step and create some history of their own. The Marauders entered the season as one of the top contenders for the Yates Cup championship, emblematic of OUA supremacy. However, the consensus favourite was the Western University Mustangs, led by former Mac coach Greg Marshall.

A high CIS ranking after beating perennially tough Queen’s in the league opener, put the Marauders into an early season showdown with Western. Giving credence to all the pundits, the Mustangs humbled the Marauders with a decisive 48-21 victory. A disappointing result for the Marauders, but still a watershed moment as now the team goals evolved to include getting another crack at Western.

Behind the quarterback tandem of Kyle Quinlan and Marshall Ferguson, the McMaster offense became the most prolific in Canada. Not to be outdone, the Marauder defense emerged as a dominant unit, leading the nation in interceptions and only allowing 14 points per game versus opponents not named Mustangs. Moving past the loss in week two, the Marauders proceeded to finish the season on a six-game win streak to finish league play with a 7 and 1 record, the same as Western, but in second place behind the Mustangs. It was now time for the second season to begin.

After cruising by the Queen’s Gaels in their second match-up of the year, the Marauders had their eyes set on the Western Mustangs to get revenge. The OUA Yates Cup final was a dream match-up with the league’s top two teams staring across the field at each other. The field would be TD Waterhouse Stadium, as Western enjoyed home-field by virtue of its earlier pasting of the Marauders. But a different script would play out this day, as the Marauder defense played, perhaps, its best game of the season, shutting down the vaunted Mustang ground game. With the offense under Kyle Quinlan, showing multiple weapons, the Marauders took over in the second half to win 41-19 for McMaster’s fifth Yates Cup in school history and the first for Stef Ptaszek as a head coach.

The 2011 Uteck Bowl was McMaster’s first trip to a national semifinal since 2003, and the Marauders first trip to play in the Maritimes since winning the inaugural Atlantic Bowl in 1967. Facing a talented Acadia Axemen team that had dominated the AUS, McMaster found itself trailing 14-0 in the early going. However, the Marauders cut the deficit in half before the end of the first quarter and behind a potent passing attack, exploded for 24 points in the second quarter to seize control of the game. Displaying a diversity that kept Acadia on its heels, McMaster won 45-21 to earn the team’s first Vanier Cup berth in 44 years. Ironically, the 2011 season would end where it started, with McMaster facing Laval, with the two teams clashing under the dome at BC Place stadium and with considerably more at stake.

On November 25, 2011, the McMaster football team faced the Laval Rouge et Or, which was looking for a second consecutive Vanier Cup and its sixth national title. The Marauders were widely viewed as underdogs but that August pre-season tilt had served a key purpose; the Laval mystique had been shattered as McMaster knew it could compete with the champs. Rushing out to a 23-0 lead by halftime, McMaster stunned the defending champs. But showing its own mettle, Laval rallied to take the lead 24-23. It was then Mac’s turn to respond and the Marauders regained the lead 31-24 before a late touchdown by Laval sent the game to overtime.

The teams traded scores in the first overtime, making the score 38-38. In the second extra session, Marauder Steve Ventresca made a play that will live in McMaster history by intercepting a Laval pass; that set the stage for Tyler Crapigna to kick the game winning field goal giving McMaster its first Vanier Cup victory by the score of 41-38. The win came in what has been called by many the greatest Vanier Cup ever played, and is now a milestone achievement for McMaster University.

McMaster’s current contributions to the CFL include: Ryan Donnelly (OL) - Winnipeg, Mike Bradwell (SB) - Toronto (still active), Jason Pottinger (LB) - Toronto, Andre Sadeghian (RB) - Hamilton, Ray Mariuz (LB) - Hamilton, Jesse Lumsden (RB) - Edmonton, Kyle Koch (OL) - Edmonton (still active), Jeff Robertshaw (DE) - Montreal, Andrew Jones (OL) - BC (still active), Jason Arakgi (S) - BC (still active), Matt O’Meara - Saskatchewan and Chris Van Zeyl (DL) - Toronto (still active). Mike Botterill (LB), Tristan Clovis (S), Fabio Filice (OL), and Chris Vrantsis (LS) retired from the CFL prior to the 2009/2010 season.

McMaster has had 66 former players active in the CFL dating back to 1926.