Bio:
The 1938 football Redmen won the Yates Cup as Senior Intercollegiate Football League champs for the first time in a decade. It was to be McGill's only football championship for the next 22 years. This team was the talk of the town and played to sellout crowds. It was a group of athletes best remembered as one which truly epitomized the "team concept". The Redmen had an 8-1 won-loss record over-all, outscoring their opponents 128-42. They won their first seven games before losing their last regular season contest 16-6 at Western which forced a sudden-death playoff game for the Yates Cup.
"We were not defeated in that crucial match because we never thought that we would be," said captain and inside wing Lou Ruschin at a post-championship dinner in front of 540 guests at the Mount Royal Hotel on December 19, 1938. "And the man responsible for it all - the man whom we admire and respect is (head coach) Doug "Pop" Kerr."
In that championship game, McGill rallied to blank Western 9-0, on the strength of a record nine singles by all-star kicker/halfback Herb Westman, who won the league scoring title. Quarterback Ronnie Perowne was one of four other McGill players named to the league all-star team along with middle wing Andy Anton, outside wing Jimmy Hall and flying wing Alex Hamilton.
Other members of that championship team were: inside wing Howie Bartram, backfielder Massey Beveridge, centre half Art Bradsher, left outside wing Chip Drury, flying wing Perry Foster, right outside wing Joey Jacobson, halfback Ralph "Bob" Keefer, middle lineman Bob Kenny, lineman Howie LaBerge, middle lineman Colin McDougall, halfback Russ Merifield, snapback Preston Robb, left halfback Ernie Rossiter, inside wing Frederick Sauder, inside wing Ben Stevenson, middle lineman Charles Smith, middle lineman Eddie Tabah, middle Murray Telford and outside wing Kenny Wilson.
Members of the support staff were: "Bun" Rahilly (manager), Ayton Keyes (asst. manager), Harry Grimes (trainer), Gord Wilcox (asst. trainer), Buster Fletcher (asst. coach), Walter Markham (asst. coach), Stu Smith (asst. coach), Fred Wigle (asst. coach) and Johnny Cloghesy (asst. coach).
In 1991, the surviving members of this team established the "1938 McGill Champions Memorial Awards", for academic achievement and leadership in athletics, presented annually in memory of their seven McGill football and hockey teammates who lost their lives in World War II.
