Canadian Football Hall of Fame Inductee Jim Hopson sat down with CTV Regina's Claire Hanna for an interview. The official induction ceremony is on August 9 in Hamilton.
Q: Jim a couple days ago you found out that you are being inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, has it begun to sink in yet?
A: I actually found out a couple months ago, they called me and let me know but of course it was confidential, then on Wednesday it was announced and all the press and everything was made aware. Its starting to sink in, at first it seemed surreal. It’s not something you expect, it’s not something I expected. I was excited and of course because I had to keep it confidential I wasn’t able to talk about it, so I told my mom of course, and so on but Wednesday it really became more real, as we talked and did interviews. Then I started to get phone calls and emails and texts so the last couple days have been a whirlwind and its very exciting. It’s sort of the ultimate to be able to go into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Q: Jim I understand when you found out you were speechless, and given that you had such a big voice with the Riders, what are you most proud of with this induction?
A: I think it recognizes the Riders, the organization and the fans. I know I’m being singled out to go into the Hall, but I really I think it’s a lot of recognition for what the Riders are, what the Riders mean to the CFL. The thing that I’m probably most proud of, and I’ve had people ask you know “is it the Grey Cups, it it the new stadium, is it the home Grey Cup Victory?”, and for me, it’s more about the change in expectations of our fans and organization and just the CFL and in general, that the Riders are going to be a good team, the Riders are going to compete, the Riders are going to win Championships. I think for so long, you know growing up in the province, I saw expectations that were fairly low. We were happy to have a team, we almost lost our team many times. We had to have telethons and so on so it was more about survival and if we could get lucky and go to the odd Grey Cup, that was wonderful so that change in expectations and just having a team isn’t good enough anymore so that’s important to me.
Q: You’re being pretty humble there because when I’ve spoken with people about your tenure as CEO you really brought the Riders from being a small town potentially ordinary team to a brand that’s really recognized across North America and arguably the world, how did you do that?
A: A lot of it was being at the right place at the right time and I really mean that. When I came on board the province was just starting to take off, we went into a tremendous period of growth and population growth and industry and all kinds of things were happening, so a good time to be successful. I think my biggest contribution was just saying ‘Look, we’re going to win. We’re going to be a Champion, we need to have Grey Cups.’ It happened fairly quickly, it happened in my third year in 2007, wasn’t easy. Had to make some tough decisions, had to let good people like Roy Shivers and Danny Barrett go. But we made those changes and Eric Tillman and Kent Austin came in. We won the Grey Cup and that just lit the fire. People were just so excited about the Riders and what was happening, our season tickets went from 7000 to 20,000 and everthing was exploding. And the merchandise took off, you know we thought we could do better but frankly we didn’t envision that we were going to start challenging the Montreal Canadians, Toronto Maple Leafs, Blue Jays in terms of sales. You can’t go anywhere in the province, I found you can’t go anywhere in the world, I’ve seen people in Korea and Europe and other places wearing Rider hats, Rider gear. We get pictures of flags flying on mountains across Asia. It’s that pride, Rider pride. That really put us on the map I think.
Q: You hinted at 2007 being a big turning point. How much do you think your hiring of Kent Austin helped contribute to that success?
A: It was a big part, and it actually wasn’t my hiring was Eric Tillman, I really believed it was my job to get a good general manager in place and then it was the general managers job to hire the coach and let the coach and general manager to put the staff and players in place. To be very honest, after I hired after Eric, he said well if we make a coaching change he said you need to know I’m going to hire Kent Austin. I had to back up a little bit because I thought, my, I don’t know about that. Kent left here under tough conditions in that he wasn’t happy, he wanted to leave. The fans weren’t happy that he wanted to leave, so here we’re going to bring Kent back as our Head Coach, but I said, if he’s your guy, he’s your guy and I had to trust him and he was right. Kent came in here and he was tremendous and gave us the push to get over the hump so to speak. We’d been a good team, but we just couldn’t get past that 9 and 9 thing and get into a home playoff game and into a Grey Cup and he did that. And after that it just got better and better.
Q: Jim you’ve talked about these successes and we all see them, the financial, the merchandise, the fact that you reached 4 CFL Finals, won two Grey Cups, almost three. Is there anything you look back on and regret?
A: The regrets are the losses in the Grey Cups I guess, those are tough to control. As President you’ve got to let your team play and let your coaches coach. Kenny Miller and I were talking one time and Kenny said ‘it’s great to win the Championships and I’m so proud of being part of the Grey Cup we won in 07, but you don’t think about those things. You think about the losses.’ I still think more about 1976, the Grey Cup I played in and we lost that in the last few minutes with Tony Gabriel catching a touchdown pass. Then ‘09 of course, the 13th man, and ’10 we were very close and lost to Montreal, so you think about the ones that go away a little ones that the one you win. I even think in ’14 I really felt like we were going back to the Grey Cup and we had a very good team and a chance to repeat which would have been remarkable but Darian got hurt in Winnipeg and that season kind of went down the drain and that’s the nature of the game. I think more about some of the bad things unfortunately but I’m still very proud and I do think about ’07. My wide Brenda can tell you, we were so unprepared to be at the Grey Cup. We had not been in one for so long and we got there and the city was overrun by Rider fans and all the Rider fans wanted tickets and we had this little room for Riderville and we learned very quickly we needed much bigger space. We were just going from sun up until sundown and trying to get everything organized, take care of the players, take care of the families. It was almost relief when the game started because we could just relax a little bit. Then of course we found out afterwards, after you win a Grey Cup it even gets crazier. And it go crazier. When you look back, that was sort of the start of it all. It kept rolling, now we assume we’re going to go back to Grey Cups, and we’re very disappointed when we don’t.
Q: Going back even further, you’re a Regina boy. You’re local, you played for the Rams, you played for the Riders, and you’re successor, Craig Reynolds, is also Saskatchewan born. How much do you think that local pride, plays into your success with the Roughriders?
A: I think it helped, it was a plus. It doesn’t mean you can’t have people come in here from anywhere because that’s the nature of business in sport and good people are good people. But certainly it gave us that understanding of what the team meant to the fans, the important of the team, the importance to me to be transparent and honest with our fans. They understand football, they understand the Riders. They’re going to be passionate about the team whether they win or lose, they’re not going to walk away. But I think it was very important but yet you still have to look at others who aren’t from Saskatchewan to be part of the mix. I look at the current regime and of course Craig, but I look at Jeremy and I know he’s been here since 1999. He’s married and raising his family here, he understands who the Riders are and what it means to be a Rider. I think that’s important, in a small market like this with really just the Riders and now the Rush we don’t have a lot of Pro teams to focus on.
Q: Hopefully there’s a couple more coming up in the future…This is a huge honour but one day, when you’re not with us anymore, hopefully that’s a long ways away, what do you hope people remember about your legacy?
A: Never had that question asked, that’s an interesting question. I guess that I was someone they could count on and was passionate about whatever I did. I was passionate about being an educator, a principle, a director of education. Passionate about being a player, passionate about you know my family, my wife and my kids. I think that kind of who I am, as that passion comes out. I’ve seen a couple of clips in the last while of me on the sideline and I didn’t quite realize that I was always that visible in terms of my passion and my excitement or disappointment. That’s who you are, you wear you heart on your sleeve. I hope I contributed certainly we had a great run but I hope we’re going to have another great run. I don’t want the 10 years that I was there to be the best 10 years ever, I hope the next 10 years are the best ever.
