PLAYER #67 - DOUG MCIVER (1976-78)

When Doug McIver played with the Argos from 1976-78, the team was at its most popular, and most chaotic, phase off the field. While the Double Blue were drawing 50,000 fans a game at the newly-expanded CNE Stadium, at the same time, they were drawing blood in their own dressing room.

"(The book) 'North Dallas 40' paled in comparison with what was happening with the Argos," said McIver, a defensive lineman on that team. "You know the song, 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat'. It was like that here, everybody fighting all the time." But hey, what's a good time without a little controversy.

"It was a lot of fun, though, no question about it," admitted McIver, who came to the Argonauts after being taken by his hometown Winnipeg Blue Bombers as a territorial pick in the 1975 draft out of the University of Manitoba. "When I got here, I felt like the kid in David Copperfield's 'Great Expectations. It was a city paved with gold."

In keeping with the tradition of the team at the time, he was an aggressive player who got kicked out of two games in the 1978 season, which brought him a warning from commissioner Jake Gaudaur.

"Mr. Gaudaur told me if I got kicked out of one more game, I would have to go look for another job," said McIver, who after the season did not switch employment, but did switch teams. He was a member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders from 1979-81, and then ended up his career in his hometown by coming full circle and playing for the Blue Bombers from 1982-84, including being a member of their 1984 Grey Cup team.

While back on the Prairies, McIver began working on his second career, which was selling cars. He started in Regina, and then went to work for his father's Chrysler dealership in Winnipeg, where he stayed until 1991. Then, he said, "I took a leap of faith!" in the middle of the recession, a 2,000 km jump that took him back to Toronto and the Willowdale Dodge dealership. At the time he bought the struggling location, it was last in the city, but according to McIver, in five years it has turned around to become the #1 Chrysler/Dodge dealership in Canada.

"Football's been very good to me; the principles I learned from football I've applied to business," said McIver, who credits former assistant coach Lamar Leachman, a favourite with almost all the members of that era, with helping him on his way. "He used to say: 'nothing can defeat repeated effort'. He was right."

On the family front, McIver and his wife Evelyn have three children, sons Douglas and Andrew and daughter Alexandria.


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