OVERHAULED APPROACH USHERED IN BOOM PERIOD
Hopson got Riders out from under $200,000 in debt and paved way for a new stadium
Jim Hopson was a burly guy. Big and bald, often stern and kinda scary. Until he laughed.
Then he was no longer your grade-school principal, a run-blocking offensive lineman or the first full-time, franchise-saving Ceo/president of the CFL'S Saskatchewan Roughriders. He was your friend.
Never mind that through 10 years in charge of the community-owned Roughriders he took them from a franchise that was $200,000 in debt to the league's best, with $36 million in assets and a we-can-do-it attitude that showed with four Grey Cup appearances and victories in 2007 and 2013. The latter came in Regina's jam-packed, refurbished but dilapidated ballpark that he helped replace four years later with the $280-million Mosaic Stadium.
Hopson had a lot of friends. Perhaps a few detractors, some upset about the magnitude and cost of the new stadium, but that sometimes happens to bold decision-makers. When Hopson said a few months ago that his colon cancer was terminal, he reminded everyone to get screened, faced the challenge in his straightforward fashion and in interviews even chuckled about the disease taking away some of his extra pounds.
We knew it was coming, but there are many people feeling they lost a friend with the announcement from his family that Hopson died Tuesday at age 73.
Hopson's commitment to the CFL and community earned him numerous laurels, plus induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and the Regina Sports Hall of Fame, which feted him as a builder/athlete, much to his joy.
“I'm just a guy from Thom Collegiate who got to play football in my hometown,” Hopson said after the ceremony. “Most of my awards were for off-the-field successes and I appreciate them very much, but this recognizes that I had some success as a player, too. I was the top offensive lineman with the ( junior) Rams who got to play for legendary coach Gord Currie, plus I was able to play a few years (1973-76) on the Riders with Ron Lancaster and George Reed.
“You know, if I had just played some football, had my career in education and my family and never became a football administrator, that would be a pretty good life.”
With his education degree from the University of Regina luring him away from football, Hopson's teaching career took him from Ceylon to Lumsden, always helping as a volunteer coach, before becoming a school principal and director of a school division. That's where he learned to make difficult, informed decisions, a trait that helped him apply for and become the Roughriders' first paid president in 2005.
Believing the Roughriders and their fans needed to become the “little engine that could,” Hopson altered how the team conducted business to make sure everything was done to help the franchise succeed, not just survive.
Along the way he fired general managers Roy Shivers and Eric Tillman, who was in a legal scandal after winning the 2007 Grey Cup, and reworked the hierarchy until GM Brendan Taman and head coach Corey Chamblin produced that memorable championship in 2013.
Hopson stepped aside in 2015, believing it was the proper time. He left the Ceo/president position to Craig Reynolds, the financial vice-president who had been hired as a potential replacement. Hopson always thought it important to be surrounded by competent people, who were involved and capable of handling more responsibility. That's what great leaders do.
Though we had occasionally crossed swords while I was the Roughriders beat writer for the Leader-post, Hopson called me one day on the recommendation of former sports editor Rob Vanstone.
“I'm thinking about writing a book,” Hopson said. “Would you like to help?”
We got publisher Deana Driver involved and worked through the basics of Running the Riders: My Decade as CEO of Canada's Team, deciding he could write his story longhand and I would type in the manuscript, making editorial changes, clarifying things and asking for more details when required.
Every few days I picked up about 100 sheets of foolscap with his neat, schoolteacher's writing, well told and properly spelled, sometimes with notes and arrows leading to tidbits on other pages. It went great, except when he used a green pen that was barely legible. I told him to stop using the green pen and asked why he had asked me to help, considering some of our past disagreements.
“You'll tell it to me straight,” he said. “No b.s.”
Just like him. We laughed.
I'm just a guy from Thom Collegiate who got to play football in my hometown.