Roy Dewalt (born September 4, 1956) is a former

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 ...

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 ...

who, in a career lasting nine years, played for 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 season ...

between 1980 and 1987, and 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 Fiel ...

and

Ottawa Rough Riders The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. Formerly one of the oldest and longest-lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine ...

in 1988. He led the Lions to their second

Grey Cup The Grey Cup (french: Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested be ...

championship in

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

and was named the

Grey Cup Most Valuable Player The Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player (MVP) award is awarded annually since 1959 to the player of the winning team who deemed to have had the best performance in the Grey Cup Game, the Canadian Football League's championship game. This award is prese ...

on offence.

Professional career

Dewalt joined the Lions in 1980 after being originally drafted out of

Texas-Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA or UT Arlington) is a public research university in Arlington, Texas. The university was founded in 1895 and was in the Texas A&M University System for several decades until joining the University of T ...

as a running back by the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...

in the ninth round of the

NFL Draft The National Football League Draft, also called the NFL Draft or (officially) the Player Selection Meeting, is an annual event which serves as the league's most common source of player recruitment. Each team is given a position in the drafting o ...

that season, and served as the back-up quarterback to Joe "the Throwin' Samoan" Paopao for two seasons. In 1982, he succeeded Paopao, which coincided with the arrival of

Mervyn Fernandez Mervyn L. Fernandez (born December 29, 1959), nicknamed Swervin' Mervyn, is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver with the BC Lions in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and Los Angeles Raiders in the National ...

who became Dewalt's favourite target. The next season Dewalt helped to lead the team to first place in the CFL Western Division, with an 11-5-0 record, and to its first

appearance since 1964. However, they lost to the

Toronto Argonauts The Toronto Argonauts (officially the Toronto Argonaut Football Club and colloquially known as the Argos) are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario ...

, 18 to 17. In 1984, despite a first place record of 12-3-1, the Lions lost the West championship to the Blue Bombers. However, in 1985 the Lions came back with a 13-3-0 record, again first in the West, and a 37-24 Grey Cup victory over the

Hamilton Tiger-Cats The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a professional Canadian football team based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Tim Hortons Fiel ...

. Although in 1985 Dewalt completed 301 out of 476 pass attempts for 4,237 yards and 27 touchdowns to 12 interceptions, his best season, he was not chosen as the division's all-star quarterback. That honour went to Matt Dunigan of the Edmonton Eskimos. For the next two seasons Dewalt was not as effective of a quarterback, in part due to an injury to Fernandez in 1985 and the receiver's departure for the

Los Angeles Raiders The Los Angeles Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1994 before relocating back to Oakland, California, where the team played from its inaugural 1960 season to the 1981 season and then agai ...

in 1986. In 1988, he was allowed to sign with the

after the Lions replaced him with

Matt Dunigan Matt Dunigan (born December 6, 1960) is an American broadcaster and former professional football player and executive. He is a Canadian Football League (CFL) sportscaster for Canadian sports television channel TSN. Dunigan is a former quarterb ...

. An arm injury led Dewalt to a number of poor performances and he was sent packing to the

where, overall, his play did not improve. He retired from pro football after the season.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dewalt, Roy Canadian football quarterbacks BC Lions players Winnipeg Blue Bombers players Ottawa Rough Riders players Texas–Arlington Mavericks football players Living people African-American players of Canadian football Players of American football from Houston Players of Canadian football from Houston 1956 births American football quarterbacks 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople