Obituary: Former Ottawa Rough Riders owner Bernie Glieberman

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The reality that his father was gone hit Lonie Glieberman hard Tuesday morning.

Bernie Glieberman, a former owner of both the Ottawa Rough Riders and Renegades, died early Monday. He was 84.

He had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in May, then had a stroke around noon Sunday and was rushed to hospital.

“It’s weird,” Lonie said. “After he died, I was thinking, ‘This (feeling of grief) isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.’ Then it hit me. I couldn’t call him, I couldn’t (have a conversation with him). If I ever had a problem, I’d call him and he’d tell me, ‘It’s never as bad as you think.’”

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The talks with his dad always lifted Lonie, the owner of Mount Bohemia, a successful ski resort in Michigan’s upper peninsula.

“I liked showing him I might not have been as incompetent as some people thought I was in the world of football,” Lonie said. “My dad and I were not super close when I was growing up. He was very good to me, but we didn’t talk a ton. When we got into the football business, and when I got into the ski business, we bonded.”

Lonie said his dad was optimistic, even after the leukemia diagnosis.

“I didn’t tell him the odds, but he probably knew,” Lonie said. “At his age, there’s a 98-per-cent chance you won’t live past two years.

“My dad was very positive … He would say, ‘I feel pretty good, I’m going to beat this.’ He was going for shots five days a week, once a month. The last set of shots, he felt awful. But it wasn’t what killed him, it was the stroke.”

Bernie Glieberman was a lot of things. Optimistic. Persistent. Caring. A good person, beloved by others. A believer in the people that worked for him. And a good father.

“No matter what kind of problem I was having, my dad would tell me, ‘It’s OK,’” Lonie said. “He was incredibly positive and he had a lot of energy. He taught me a lot.”

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A hugely successful developer, Bernie Glieberman had spent much of his time at home the past couple of years caring for his wife of 59 years, Sandee, who has dementia.

“He didn’t want to leave her; he took care of her. He wouldn’t put her in a home,” Lonie said. “He sacrificed a lot the past couple of years to be with her.”

Bernie Glieberman bought the Rough Riders in 1991, making Lonie the team president. The Gliebermans owned the team for the next couple of seasons before taking over a team in Shreveport, La., as part of the Canadian Football League’s U.S. expansion. That team lasted two seasons. Then, under new ownership, the Rough Riders folded in 1996.

Some look at the Glieberman era of football ownership as being bad; that’s not fair. While mistakes were made, they kept football alive in Ottawa when no others would.

“It’s important to know that (in 1991, when Bernie bought the Rough Riders), there were no other credible suitors,” said Jo-Anne Polak, then the Rough Riders’ general manager. “I saw (the Gliebermans) as being like a gift from God. (Bernie) said to me, ‘I want to prove to you things are going to be different. I’m going to put a significant amount of money in the bank and you will never have to worry about going paycheque to paycheque again.’

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“We spent a lot of time together from that September until I left (the team). He treated everybody with such respect. There was not a bone of arrogance in his body. What you remember the most: He really, really was a kind man. And how he treated people with respect and the relationship his family (also including daughter Tracey) had with each other; everything was family first. His love for his son was unbelievable.”

Leading into the purchase of the Rough Riders, Lonie had talked to John Candy, then one of the owners of the Toronto Argos. One day Candy called the office, looking for Lonie, and got on the phone with Bernie. They met in California soon after and Candy told Bernie the Ottawa team really needed an owner.

“John said to my dad, ‘I know your first choice is to have a team in Detroit; (if you buy the Ottawa team,) we’ll give you an option for Detroit when U.S. expansion starts,’” Lonie said.

“My dad wanted to to win. He would have loved to win a Grey Cup. But he loved to grow things. He wanted to be part of (the CFL) because John Candy said, ‘We’re going to grow this thing into America.’”

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Lonie admits he made mistakes along the way. During the final days of the Renegades, there was tension between father and son. Lonie stepped away from the job.

“We were fighting a lot,” Lonie said. “We were on pretty bad terms that final month of the Renegades … we’d yell at each other. It cleared up. After the team was done, we were back to normal.”

In real estate, Glieberman’s company was, at one point, the second-largest developer in Michigan and ranked in the Top 100 in the United States.

“He really did like Ottawa. He wished it had been a success,” Lonie said. “It was my idea to go to Shreveport, not his. At the end, he said to me, ‘We’re going to lose money for 10 straight years. I don’t see the upside.’ ”

Lonie said in late 2005 or early 2006, he and his dad had conversations with former NFL player Randy Vataha (who later was president of a company that specialized in the buying and selling of professional sports teams). Vataha wanted to talk to CFL owners about getting an investment bank involved for American expansion.

“The league would control the teams, the investment bank would put up money,” Lonie said. “(Then CFL commissioner) Tom Wright had no interest. I said to to Tom, ‘What if you can get $500 million of an investment bank’s money to add American teams?’ He said, ‘The NFL will put a team in Toronto.’ My response was, “Are we supposed to run scared because the NFL may come to Toronto?’”

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