PLAYER #119 - BRUCE RICHARDSON (1945-46)

A lot of football players consider themselves fighters, but Bruce Richardson was a fighter who also considered himself a football player.

Nicknamed "Boo-Boo" by his teammates ("but he didn't like it" confessed linebacker Steve Pruski), Richardson was a championship amateur middleweight boxer in the 1940's, who also served as a boxing instructor during the war. His main claim to fame in the ring was during the years 1941-43, when the Lions Club would hold large amateur boxing cards in Maple Leaf Gardens, where they would bring up the best amateurs from the U.S. But they proved to be no match for Richardson, who won the title all three times.

After his stint with the Argos, where he played end on both offence and defence in 1945 and '46, Richardson turned to pro boxing in 1947, where over the next six years he compiled a respectable record of 29-8, although he never quite claimed a major title.

"There was more money in boxing," admitted Richardson candidly. "I fought up and down the west coast, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco. I used to come back (to Canada) every year, but then I just stayed down there fighting."

Richardson's best friend with the Argos was Hall-of-Fame halfback Royal Copeland, whom he accompanied out to Calgary in 1950, when a lot of the former Argos were disenchanted with team management. Richardson then followed Copeland down to California to live and train, and it was there that the two of them would become stars in a different setting: Hollywood. They had bit parts in a couple of movies in the 1950's; "Flesh and Fury" with Tony Curtis, and "Street With No Name".

When reminiscing about his time with the Argos, the thing that Richardson remembers most was the close friendships he made with guys like Copeland, the Karrys brothers, Charlie Camilleri, Fred Doty and others. He also remembers the hijinks very well.

"There were about 10 of us that were coming back from the Toronto Islands on a ferry, and the guys dared someone to jump into the water," laughed Richardson. "I said I'd do it for $10. So they gathered up the money, I put it in my pocket, jumped off the rail, swam to shore, and then took the cab home."

During this time, Richardson also briefly worked as a cub reporter for the Globe and Mail, a practice that was not unusual during this era, since guys like Annis Stukus also played and wrote for the Toronto Star at the same time.

When his boxing career ended, and after a six-year stay in Hartford, Connecticut in the building business from 1953-59, Richardson returned to newspapers in the Toronto area, where he worked as an editor of the Woodbridge News and Weston Times, among other publications. But for the past three decades or so, Richardson has been involved in the real estate business, where he still works as a consultant.