Straight-shooting Riders GM Roy Shivers in Plaza of Honour

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Asked what pops into his mind when thinking about his years as the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ general manager, Roy Shivers naturally had a blunt answer:

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“What do I think of? I think it was a job well done, particularly with all the shit I went through.”

There may be fans and former executive members who quibble with that statement because during his seven CFL seasons with the Roughriders they never won a Grey Cup. But it was Shivers who assembled most of the 2007 championship team before being fired midway through the 2006 CFL season  — although he insists he quit before CEO Jim Hopson and chairman Graham Barker actually did the deed.

Shivers also acquired the quarterbacks who won Saskatchewan’s two most recent championships: Kerry Joseph in 2007 and Darian Durant in 2013.

Inducted two years ago into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, Shivers is being enshrined this weekend into the Roughriders Plaza of Honour, appropriately alongside Durant. It’s also fitting that the Roughriders are playing the B.C. Lions on Saturday, because Shivers still rues a 27-25 overtime loss to B.C. in the 2004 Western final, a crushing defeat which kept his team from getting to the Grey Cup.

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Saddened by the recent death of baseball’s Pete Rose, a longtime idol who also lived in Las Vegas, Shivers has been visiting friends in Regina before the festivities, enjoying the accolades and relationships he started accumulating 25 years ago.

Hired on reputation by then-Riders president Bob Ellard, who didn’t know his new GM was Black, Shivers arrived in Saskatchewan to replace Alan Ford in the waning days of 1999. Because of his ability to stockpile Grey Cup-winning rosters with B.C. and the Calgary Stampeders, Shivers had been the CFL’s first Black general manager with the short-lived Birmingham Barracudas in 1995.

He took over a Riders team that had fallen on hard times financially, posted a fifth straight losing season (although it somehow qualified for the 1997 Grey Cup) and had a pitiful player list that even his blue vocabulary couldn’t properly describe.

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“I was just telling the story about the (University of) Texas coach, Steve Sarkisian,” said Shivers, recalling his initial assessment of Saskatchewan’s quarterback depth. “In our first meeting we’re calling all the names, his comes up and I say, ‘F***, he can’t play!’ We cut him. Now he’s making $10 million a year. He should give me half of that. No s***!

“We went over that whole roster and there was a running back I liked (Mike Saunders), but he had a bonus coming. We’re figuring out financial stuff, so I called (Ellard) and he said, ‘You can give it to him. Good kid.’ So we gave (Saunders) $15,000 and never heard from him again.”

Shivers brought along a Black head coach, B.C. Lions assistant and CFL journeyman quarterback Danny Barrett, making them the first all-Black management team in pro football. Shivers often said he wouldn’t have been able to face his late father if, given a management opportunity, he didn’t pull along another Black man.

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The team slowly got better under Shivers, but got stuck in mediocrity with back-to-back-to-back 9-9 seasons that led to the hierarchal turnover initiated by Hopson. Shivers ultimately admitted his loyalty to Barrett may have prevented the team from winning, which happened in 2007 when Eric Tillman took over and hired ex-Riders quarterback Kent Austin as the Riders’ head coach.

Shivers ultimately made peace with Hopson. Never one to mince words, Shivers still bristles when talking about Tillman, former Riders president Tom Shepherd and legendary Leader-Post columnist Bob Hughes.

Although the relationship started congenially with Rider Nation when Shivers and Barrett took over, as the team flat-lined there were rising complaints that the franchise was too committed to signing Black players and wearing black uniforms. It was ugly racism, uncalled for and wrong.

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Shivers actually turned around the team’s fortunes, making it more appealing for top-level talent to come to Saskatchewan. The Roughriders subsequently appeared in the 2009 and 2010 Grey Cups. Winning the 2013 championship in dilapidated Taylor Field probably sparked — to the chagrin of some taxpayers — the construction of Mosaic Stadium in 2017. As Hopson used to say, it’s not a stretch to give Shivers credit for the current, stable state of the community-owned franchise.

“I kept telling Danny and everybody, ‘We’re gonna keep f***ing around here and get fired, then somebody is gonna come in and win the Grey Cup with our team,” said Shivers. “It happened.

“The only thing I’ve got going for me is my honesty. I’m not a millionaire, but if you ask me a question, I’m gonna give you an answer.”

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