Rob Vanstone
Feb 02, 2023
Rob Vanstone remembers the one CFL touchdown by the late Dave Albright — a fumble-return major that changed the 1989 West Division final.
Dave Albright never scored a touchdown in 76 regular-season games with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but nobody who watched the championship team of 1989 will ever forget the one time he did cross the goal line.
The West Division final, played at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, was proceeding as anticipated.
The Edmonton Eskimos (now Elks) were leading 10-3 early in the second quarter and marching for what was expected to be another score against the visitors from Saskatchewan.
Then came a Lowe blow, which smoked Ham.
A crushing hit by blitzing linebacker Eddie Lowe rocked Edmonton quarterback Tracy Ham and forced a fumble.
Albright, the veteran middle linebacker, scooped up the football and chugged 62 unimpeded yards to pay dirt.
One Dave Ridgway convert later, a game that was shaping up like a rout was suddenly tied.
“When Eddie hit Tracy and Dave galloped for that touchdown, it really felt like it was ‘game on,’ ” Ridgway said the other day.
The Roughriders, a 9-9 team that was pitted against a 16-2 powerhouse, engaged in a back-and-forth struggle with the formidable Edmonton side until Tom Burgess threw back-to-back third-quarter touchdown passes to Jeff Fairholm and Ray Elgaard.
Elgaard’s leaping grab, just in-bounds on the right side of the end zone, amazes to this day. So does the speed of Fairholm, who scored on a 47-yard bomb down the left sideline as Saskatchewan surged to a 32-21 victory over a supposedly invincible Edmonton team that still owns the CFL’s single-season record for victories.
Saskatchewan engineered another upset a week later, defeating the 12-6 Hamilton Tiger-Cats 43-40 in the 1989 Grey Cup game. That classic contest was decided by Ridgway, who connected on a 35-yard field goal with two seconds remaining.
The Kick is one of many impactful plays that is routinely referenced when people reminisce about the 77th Grey Cup, played at SkyDome (now Rogers Centre) in Toronto.
Consider Kent Austin‘s three scoring passes — to Elgaard, Fairholm and Don Narcisse — during a sensational second quarter in which the teams combined for five consecutive touchdown drives.
The final TD pass of the game, from Mike Kerrigan to Tony Champion, enabled Hamilton to create a 40-40 tie in the final minute. Despite playing with cracked ribs, Champion made a remarkable twisting catch on third-and-goal from the nine-yard line.
Austin then moved the Roughriders into field-goal range, finding Elgaard for 20 yards before hitting Mark Guy for gains of 18 and 10. Cue the climactic kick by Ridgway.
But what is THE play that everyone remembers from Nov. 19, 1989?
Eddie Lowe flattening Tracy Ham.
Touchdown, Dave Albright.
“I thought Albright showed a lot of poise, because most players would have jumped on the ball and been happy,” Eskimos head coach Joe Faragalli said after the game. ”
Images of that pivotal play were oft-replayed and fondly remembered on the weekend, when word circulated that Albright had died in Redondo Beach, Calif. He turned 63 on Jan. 25 and suffered a heart attack the following day.
Many of the tributes referenced the 118 defensive tackles — a franchise record that endured for 35 years — that Albright amassed in 1987.
Less was made of his key interception in the 1989 West Division semi-final against the host Calgary Stampeders.
Albright’s pick — his second and last as a Roughrider — set up a touchdown that gave his team a 20-6 lead. The Roughriders eventually won, 33-26, on the strength of Brian Walling’s 50-yard touchdown run with 1:38 left.
Next stop: Edmonton.
Tom Richards, the Eskimos’ splendid slotback, had purchased a new Honda Prelude for his spouse in anticipation of a Grey Cup bonus.
“The wife wouldn’t let me take back the car, so the reminder was always there in the driveway,” Richards said in an interview for The Greatest Grey Cup Ever — my book about the 1989 Roughriders.
Part of the preamble to the West final included an interview Norm Cowley of the Edmonton Journal conducted with Eskimos defensive lineman John Mandarich, who was memorably dismissive of the Roughriders’ chances.
“People are expecting us to blow them out of the water but, the bottom line is, I’m expecting us to blow them out of the water,’’ Mandarich said. “It’s not being arrogant and it’s not being cocky, but it’s being determined, because there’s no reason why we shouldn’t blow them out of the water.”
Unsurprisingly, Edmonton jumped to a 10-0 lead before Ridgway’s 44-yard field goal concluded the first-quarter scoring.
Early in the second quarter, Edmonton assumed possession on its 40-yard line and briskly moved to Saskatchewan’s 25. The script seemed to be unfolding as projected.
Nobody bothered to tell Eddie Lowe.
On first down, he sacked Ham for a loss of five.
To that point in the game, there was a considerable disparity in first downs (13-2 for Edmonton), net offence (169-18) and plays from scrimmage (25-9).
But there was only one number on Lowe’s mind — 8, worn by the Eskimos’ quarterback.
“I dropped back and before you knew it, Eddie Lowe was on me,’’ Ham said in an interview for the book.
Less memorable, but still crucial, was Lowe’s interception of Ham on Edmonton’s following series — a pick that set up Elgaard’s first of two TD catches.
Lowe’s hit, above all plays, still resonates.
“He just smashed Ham,’’ Roughriders offensive lineman Vic Stevenson recalled. “I will always remember the sound of it. I remember a woman screaming when he hit him. You hear the crowd noise, and all of a sudden I hear this woman just shriek.’’
It was hardly a streak to the end zone for Albright, who braved a number of injuries to even dress for the playoffs in 1989. But he reached the destination, anyway.
“Dave Albright wasn’t Jeff Fairholm when it came to speed,’’ play-by-play man Geoff Currier said. “It was like, “He’s at the 10 . . . the nine . . . the eight . . .’ ”
Touch … down.
“That was the longest, slowest run I’ve ever seen,” Edmonton offensive lineman Blake Dermott lamented nearly 20 years later.
Time has moved much faster.
Here we are in 2023 and virtually every living member of the 1989 Roughriders is in his 60s.
Sadly, five of the players are gone now — receiver Slater Zaleski at 27, defensive tackle Chuck Klingbeil at 52, linebacker Tuineau Alipate at 54, offensive lineman Bryan Illerbrun at 56, and Albright.
Linebackers coach Ted Heath (at 77) and head coach John Gregory (84) have also passed away.
Gregory died on Dec. 12 — only 45 days before one of his favourites, Albright, was gone in such untimely fashion.
The loss of a great teammate is the latest devastating blow to members of the 1989 Roughriders.
“He was an incredible guy,” Fairholm said earlier this week, “one of the toughest I have ever seen.”
Sadly, Albright was with us for only 63 years. But we will always remember 62 yards.
VIA: https://leaderpost.com/sports/football/cfl/saskatchewan-roughriders/rob-vanstone-dave-albrights-only-cfl-touchdown-still-resonates-with-roughriders-fans
Recent Comments