Leroy Blugh (born May 14, 1966) is a former professional

Canadian football Canadian football () is a sport played in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed oval-shaped ball into the opposing team's scoring area ( ...

defensive lineman and the defensive line coach for the Queen's Gaels of

U Sports football U Sports football is the highest level of amateur play of Canadian football and operates under the auspices of U Sports (formerly Canadian Interuniversity Sport). Twenty-seven teams from Canadian universities are divided into four athletic confe ...

. He played for fifteen seasons 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 ...

(CFL) for two different teams and was the winner of the CFL's Most Outstanding Canadian Award in 1996 and is a two-time

CFL West Division The West Division is one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League (CFL), its counterpart being the East Division. Although the CFL was not founded until 1958, the West Division and its clubs are descended from earlier leagu ...

All-Star and a

81st Grey Cup The 81st Grey Cup was the 1993 Canadian Football League championship game played between the Edmonton Eskimos and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, Alberta. The Eskimos defeated the Blue Bombers 33–23 to win the Grey Cup. ...

Champion (1993). In 2015, he was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

Coaching career

Blugh served as the head football coach at

Bishop's University Bishop's University (french: Université Bishop's) is a small English-language liberal arts university in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The founder of the institution was the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, George Mountain, w ...

, his alma mater, from 2005 until his resignation after the 2010 season. He was named Defensive Line coach for Queen's University in August 2011 and spent two seasons with the

Gaels The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man in the British Isles. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic langu ...

. After one year with the Edmonton Eskimos as their defensive line coach, he was hired by the

Ottawa Redblacks The Ottawa Redblacks (officially stylized as REDBLACKS) (French: Le Rouge et Noir d'Ottawa) are a professional Canadian football team based in Ottawa, Ontario. The team plays in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Starting ...

to serve in the same capacity on February 3, 2014. He spent six seasons with Ottawa, highlighted by a championship win in the

104th Grey Cup The 104th Grey Cup (branded as the 104th Grey Cup presented by Shaw for sponsorship reasons) was a Canadian football game that was played on November 27, 2016, between the Calgary Stampeders and the Ottawa Redblacks, that decided the champion for ...

game. After the Redblacks' head coach, Rick Campbell, resigned and joined the

BC Lions The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place. The Lions played their first seas ...

, Blugh was announced as part of his 2020 staff on January 6, 2020. However, the team did not play in 2020 due to the cancellation of the

2020 CFL season The 2020 CFL season would have been the 67th season of modern-day Canadian football. Officially, it would have been the 63rd season of the Canadian Football League. It was originally scheduled to begin on June 11; on April 7, the start of the ...

and Blugh resigned from his position with the Lions on July 20, 2021, for personal reasons. After sitting out for one year, he was named the defensive line coach for the Queen's Gaels on June 6, 2022.

Personal life

Blugh was born in

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines () is an island country in the Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea w ...

and grew up in

Napanee Greater Napanee is a town in southeastern Ontario, Canada, approximately west of Kingston and the county seat of Lennox and Addington County. It is located on the eastern end of the Bay of Quinte. Greater Napanee municipality was created by a ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, where his family moved when he was five years old.

Coaching career

Personal life

Notes

Further reading