CFL payout surprises former Al
Bill Massey collects pension four decades after his last game
Bill Massey played just seven Canadian Football League games as a Montreal Alouettes running back in 1971, but some memories remain clear.
Montrealer Terry Evanshen mentored Massey about the city, the team and the league. Another receiver, John Carlos, had once shared the world 100-yard record of 9.1 seconds and was known around the globe for the gloved “black power” salute he and fellow U.S. sprinter Tommie Smith made on a medal stand during the 1968 Olympics. Carlos was Massey’s roommate on a road trip.
However, Massey doesn’t remember contributing $300 to the Canadian Football League Players’ Association Pension Plan. Evidently he did, though, because the funds that were matched by the Alouettes and are now worth $6,000 and, minus withheld taxes and an $85 banking fee, finally reached Massey more than four decades after his last game.
At this point in his life, it means a lot.
“Although there is a 25-per-cent withholding by the Canadian government, the balance of between CDN $4k and $5k means a lot to us in the Philippines, where a dollar can buy quite a lot,” Massey wrote in an email. “I find myself in a particularly vulnerable position with a young Filipino family and even a child due about the first week of July … a surprise, let me tell you.”
The connection between the 66-year-old former CFLer living outside Manila and his 1971 pension contribution was made by a Pennsylvania television sports reporter late last year. The reporter stumbled across an online version of an old list of pension plan members with whom administrators had lost contact and then read a Dec. 27 Citizen story reporting that 1,156 “missing” retirees were owed $4.5 million overall.
Like Massey, the others were listed as missing by Manulife after two consecutive semi-annual updates were returned as undeliverable to mailing addresses on file.
Fred James, a Calgarian and former Stampeders defensive lineman who is now chairman of the board for the pension plan, says 22 missing members wrote to him and 53 others called or made contact electronically after the Dec. 27 story published by the Citizen and reprised by other media outlets.
Thirty of those men have contacted Manulife to begin the verification process so they can eventually receive their pension benefits. According to James, the largest single payout since December has been about $5,000.
On the other hand, the “missing ” now number 1,170 following the latest semi-annual update mailed in December, and James says Manulife has increased the estimated total owed to CFL retirees to $12 million.
That’s more than 2.5 times the previous estimate, which, according to James, was based on faulty information. The average owed is about $10,250.
Jason Bristol, who works for a CBS station in Harrisburg, started out trying to find missing CFL pension plan members in that area and just kept going. As of late March, he says, he had found about 350 through online sources such as Facebook and Google+, and had spoken or communicated with about 60, including Massey.
The former Alouette says Bristol’s first message sparked surprise, followed by “a little disbelief that it was legitimate and not spam,” and eventually a “flood of gratitude.”
He later sent a letter of thanks to Bristol’s employer.
“As one gets older, it’s nice to remember the sweet bird of youth, so being found by Jason Bristol of a (CBS) affiliate station in Harrisburg, Pa., was moving,” Massey wrote in a recent email. “I found it remarkable that he put in the effort to find ‘lost’ members and, in my case, it has made a substantial difference in our lives.”
Massey describes the process of being verified as a CFLPA pension plan member as “fast and efficient,” and “thorough.” James helped work around the lack of a copy of Massey’s CFL contract and Bristol located an archive photo of Massey receiving a handoff from Alouettes quarterback Sonny Wade during a game against the Ottawa Rough Riders.
“When Manulife asked if I had a copy of my contract, I told Kim (his contact there) that I was feeling like Oprah Winfrey’s character in the movie Selma, when the registration guy asked her how many district court judges there were in Mississippi,” Massey wrote. “When she replied with the right number (67), he stared at her and asked, ‘What are their names?’ I guess they agreed and Fred confirmed me shortly thereafter.”
Verification for other “missing” retirees should be easier.
Doug Flutie, for example. After signing with the B.C. Lions in 1990 for a $350,000 annual salary, that was then the league’s highest, the 1984 Heisman Trophy winner went on to claim the CFL’s most outstanding player award six times in eight years. He returned to the National Football League for eight more seasons as a quarterback and today he retains a high profile as a network analyst for U.S. college football broadcasts.
Born in 1962, Flutie would have been eligible for early CFLPA pension benefits more than two years ago, about the time he moved to Florida, but he could also wait until age 60 for a full pension, which may explain why he remains “missing.” His agent, Kristen Kuliga, says Flutie will contact administrators to update his file.
“We all know that Doug isn’t missing, and we know that Doug knows the money is here,” says pension board secretary Bayne Norrie, who met the retired quarterback when he visited Edmonton for a gig with the Flutie Brothers Band he formed with his sibling, former CFL receiver Darren Flutie, and friends.
Massey doesn’t enjoy that kind of profile.
He came to the CFL from the University of Hawaii. Although his salary wouldn’t amount to much by today’s standards, it was still substantial enough for a 22-year-old, without a family to support, to live without financial pressures.
“I remember time standing still as the day came for the guy they would cut. Either me or Don (Abby),” Massey wrote. “Most all the rookies had been cut and were gone as the Alouettes were coming off a Grey Cup championship year, so there wasn’t much room for new kids on the block, no matter how talented they were. So the barracks were mostly empty. I will never forget the relief when the assistant coach came in and told Don that Coach (Sam) Etcheverry wanted to see him.”
Massey led the Alouettes in rushing that year, but a neck injury ended his season and his playing career.
By the late 1970s, he had moved on eventually landing in Vancouver, where he and his late wife Marie Simmons lived aboard a 127foot European canal yacht named Watercolour I.
Three years ago, Massey became involved in renewable energy, including a waste-to-energy power project in Costa Rica and biomass power in the Philippines where, Massey says, he has also endured a “financial winter, like when the huge Indonesian volcano erupted in the early 1800s and caused the Year Without Summer in North American and Northern Europe.” He had no income for the three years.
“I didn’t plan on it taking this long,” he wrote. “The stakes are extremely high for me personally as I am leading the push on all projects and success on any one of them means a personal reward to me in seven figures for success fees,
Bill Massey led the Alouettes in rushing that year (1971), but a neck injury ended his season and his playing career.
financing fees and a small percentage of ongoing net income, so quitting is not an option.”
Beyond the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, there are family matters. Besides the baby boy Massey’s partner, Myra, is expecting in July, there’s Operation Rescue Lance.
Described by Massey as Myra’s nephew “via a first cousin,” Lance is a six-year-old whose mother died last year, and Lance’s grandmother is so poor that she has had him selling garlic and tomatoes in a public market twice a day so they could purchase rice to eat.
“The father is a fisherman with three or four other kids and can’t support another, and after Christmas they agreed for Myra to take him if she was able,” Massey writes. “I think we bought him his first pair of shoes at Christmas, and for sure he had never been to a city before coming to Manila on Christmas.
“The CFLPA money made it possible for us to rescue Lance, and that, alone, is a wonderful thing.”