PLAYER #104 - FRED BLACK (1948-57, 59-60)

Fred Black had quite an introduction to his 11-year Argo career, and as Gord Walker puts it, "there are those who insist he never fully recovered."

"Opening kickoff, they put me on the Banzai Squad and I was going to show them they'd made a big mistake in not inviting me up sooner," said Black, who was called up from the St. Mike's junior Big Four club for the last game in 1948. "There was a fullback named Benny McDonnell who received the kickoff. I raced downfield and thought I'd knock him out of the ball park. As I was going one way, his knee came up...and he knocked me out."

As a tough lineman, it was usually Black who knocked people out, although his versatility had him playing many different positions. In 1960, coach Lou Agase called him "an all-star substitute", which sounds like a benchwarmer insult, but in fact was a great compliment. With only 28 players on a roster at the time, players like Black were essential on a team, although they usually did not receive much press. On one occasion, Black pressed Walker to write about him in the Globe and Mail as "225 pounds of twisted blue steel muscle", and although Walker declined, the monikor of "Blue Steel" stuck.

Aside from "Blue Steel", Black possessed a lot of blue humour as well. While most of it was pretty harmless, there were a few occasions where it got him into trouble.

Before the final game of the 1957 season in Montreal, Black turned to teammate Bill Albright and said: "Bill, y'know, I've never played a game stiff." The two then decided to fill one of the water bottles with rum. "We put a little piece of white tape on it so we'd know which one it was," said Black. "So halfway through the third quarter, Billy and I are feeling no pain, and Hamp was thirsty and went over and took a swig."

Black's further hurt his status with the team on the flight home. "We decided to see how impaired we could get before the flight took off," said Black. "I put my ass down beside (coach Pool). We were 4-and-10, I think. I figure, you know, the guy's gone after a record like that. So for an hour, I'm telling him he was the worst coach that I'd ever had to play for, and if I had to play another minute of football, it certainly wouldn't be under an ------- like him. And lo and behold, he was hired the next year. So I sat out."

Black came back for the 1959 and '60 seasons, where he played for one of the best Argo QB's of all time, Tobin Rote.

"(Rote) was an excellent guy," said Black. "When he first came from the (NFL's) Detroit Lions, he got all the linemen together and said: 'I can't help it if I'm making more money than you guys. However, for every game that I don't get a grass stain on my knee, you and your wives are going out to dinner on me'... He was the best protected quarterback in Argo history."

After the 1960 season, Black retired from football, and got involved in marketing and the ad specialty business.

"At first, I thought it was beneath my dignity to sell bells and whistles,...but after six or seven months without a job, I thought it was beneath my dignity to starve," joked Black.


Ancient Mariners Alumni Profiles Archive
Toronto Argonauts crunch.net

This page, and all contents, are Copyright © 1996 by Toronto Argonauts Football Club, Toronto, Canada.