Frank Rigney (April 9, 1936 – June 29, 2010) was an
offensive tackle for the
Winnipeg Blue Bombers
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West division. They play their home games at IG Fie ...
in the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...
.
College
Rigney played college ball with another Blue Bomber great,
quarterback
The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...
Ken Ploen
Kenneth Ploen LAYN (born June 3, 1935) is a former star quarterback in American college football and for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
College football
In 1956, Ploen became the University of Iowa Hawkeyes s ...
at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...
.
CFL
Frank Rigney was an outstanding offensive tackle for Winnipeg. During his 10-year stint from 1958 to 1967,
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...
won the
Grey Cup four times, in
1958
Events
January
* January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being.
* January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
* January 4
** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...
,
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
,
1961
Events January
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015).
** Aero Flight 311 (K ...
, and
1962
Events January
* January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand.
* January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism.
* January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wor ...
. Winnipeg also participated and lost in
1965, the so-called Wind Bowl. "The first year we got a tie clasp from the city. The second year that we won, we did get a ring, the one and only one we got. The next two that we won, I can't remember what we got. I think we got a watch," Rigney stated. Rigney retired from football due to back injuries. Through ten seasons he only missed five games.
Post-football
After football, he had a thirty-five year career in the insurance business and did media work for twenty years. He was the colour commentator for both the
CBC and
CTV football broadcasts, plus covered other sports such as the
1980 Winter Olympics
The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially the XIII Olympic Winter Games and also known as Lake Placid 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from February 13 to 24, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York, United States.
Lake Placid was elected ...
in
Lake Placid, New York
Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,303.
The village of Lake Placid is near the center of the town of North Elba, southwest of Plattsburg ...
and the
1984 Winter Olympics
The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games (Serbo-Croatian and Slovene: ''XIV. Zimske olimpijske igre''; Cyrillic: XIV Зимске олимпијске игре; mk, XIV Зимски олимписки игр ...
in
Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...
,
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
.
In 2003, Rigney received a titanium shoulder replacement. In 2004 due to an ulcer in his right foot he had a toe amputated. Later, Rigney's right leg was amputated below his knee after an infection from an operation turned to gangrene. At the time of his death, Rigney resided in
West Vancouver
West Vancouver is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. A member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, West Vancouver is to the northwest of the city of Vancouver on the northern side of English Ba ...
.
Photos
Pass blocking in the 1965 Grey Cup Game against Hamilton
References
*Judy Owen. ''Legends - Game was cruel to lineman Rigney'', Bomber Game Day/
Winnipeg Free Press
The ''Winnipeg Free Press'' (or WFP; founded as the ''Manitoba Free Press'') is a daily (excluding Sunday) broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It provides coverage of local, provincial, national, and international news, as well as ...
/Friday, June 2, 2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rigney, Frank
1936 births
2010 deaths
People from West Vancouver
Players of Canadian football from British Columbia
American players of Canadian football
Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian Football League announcers
Canadian football offensive linemen
Iowa Hawkeyes football players
Winnipeg Blue Bombers players