Archives: The Spirit Of 68

TORONTO ARGONAUTS ARCHIVES

With the recent announcement of Jim Stillwagon as an All-Time Argo, Argonauts.ca has dug deep into its archives to bring an interview conducted with Jim Stillwagon from 1974 entitled “The Spirit of 68”.  Stillwagon will be inducted as the next All-Time Argo on Friday, September 11 at Rogers Centre during halftime.

When Jim Stallwagon was a sophomore at Ohio State, Gord Ackerman wandered into a spring practice session of the Buckeyes at Columbus, Ohio. That was when fate started aiming one of football’s great linemen toward Toronto.

“Here was a sophomore,” recalled the former Argo assistant coach, “taking on juniors and seniors in one-on-one drills, and he was whipping them. He was so quick and so physical. One of their assistant coaches told me that Jim was going to be a great one and it was easy to believe. That was the day we put him on our negotiation list.”

Through the three seasons of college football, Stillwagon’s name stayed on the Argos’ list. Other names appeared, and then disappeared but Stillwagon stayed on. Now he had finished his senior year and he was in the market for professional offers. The Green Bay packers had drafted him in the fifth round, and the Argos had him marked “Top Priority.”

Ackerman re-visited Ohio State, and to get a more accurate reading on Stillwagon, he poured over the movies of every game Jim played in his junior and senior years.

“In watching two years of film I didn’t see him have a bad game,” said the coach. “I saw a few games where he was just good–and that was mainly because they were double and triple-teaming him.”

Ackerman cited a game against Stanford in which Stillwagon’s talents were held fairly well in check because of the close attention paid to him. The West Coast team’s All-America centre would fire out to cut him down at the knees as soon as he handed off the ball, and the guard on whichever side of the centre Stillwagon tried to move would pick up the pursuit. This meant that three men in the middle of the Stanford line were concentrating on Stillwagon, because neither guard could move until the Buckeye star committed himself.

But for a single play Ackerman picks one that Stillwagon made in his senior year, against either Michigan or Michigan State. Ackerman wasn’t sure which school was the victim but he called it “the greatest play I’ve ever seen.”
He goes on to describe it.

“Jim was the middle guard in an odd defence. The other team started to sweep to the right and Jim was double-teamed. He bounced off the centre, and slid over the guard on that side, landing on one foot, but keeping his balance. Then the far-side guard hit him from the side and knocked him to the ground. He scrambled after the ball carrier on all fours and actually caught him and made the tackle for no gain on the play. It was just unbelievable.

These weren’t just isolated cases either. He preformed them in miniature in all sections of the United States and the rewards poured in. He won the Outland Trophy as the outstanding interior lineman in U.S. college football. He won the Knute Rockne Trophy as the best lineman in U.S. schools and won the Vince Lombardi Block of Granite Trophy for similar superiority. In both his junior and senior years he made just about everybody’s All-America team. Fortunately for the Argos he was about four inches too short and about 30 pounds too light for what the NFL wanted in defensive tackle requirements.

“I knew I’d miss out on some publicity in the States by coming to Canada, but I wanted to play football,” Stillwagon said about his decision to line up with the Argos.

The 6-foot 240 pound Stillwagon, 25 years of age, doesn’t have much confidence in “tackle” statistics. They’re all right of course, but what, exactly do they prove?

“You can make a lot of tackles,” he explains, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve played a good game. What makes a good game is forcing a man to go outside, for instance, where someone else makes the tackle. Or fight off a double team block, plug the hole, and force the runner to change direction.”

This season is Stillwagon’s fourth with the Argonauts and having signed a five-year contract last year he has at least four more to go, including his option year.

“I enjoy football and I like to keep in shape. The rivalry is good. It’s good to match yourself against Ed George (Montreal) and Ed Chalpuka (Hamilton). I don’t believe in hurting people. You’ve got to play the game right. There’s no place for cheap shots. After all, this is a guy’s livelihood.”

Stillwagon has another profession working for him outside of football. He majored in Recreation at Ohio State and is actively engaged as partner in the recreational consulting business with Jorn Nielson. His work entails setting up recreational planning for high-rise apartments and home tracts, coordinating the physical social areas and supplying advice on how to set up squash courts, etc.

Nielsen’s friendly business interest in Stillwagon is primarily responsible for Jim’s continued presence with the Argonauts. He might have succumbed to NFL blandishments a year ago but Nielsen’s kindly intervention in his business life persuaded him to cast his immediate future in Canada.

Stillwagon made another move last year – to the role of gentleman farmer. He sold his home in Willowdale and bought a 25-acre farm in the Caledon district about eight miles southeast of Orangeville. He doesn’t consider driving that distance much of a burden. “It took me almost as long to get down-town from Willowdale, and there was more aggravation.

Strangely, in the light of all the awards on him eventually, he had never really wanted to play football at Ohio State, although he came from Mount Vernon, Ohio. As a youngster he thought it would be much nicer playing for a southern school. In fact he attended Augusta Military Academy and made All Prep for three years. In the final game of his senior year he was shifted to fullback in the shotgun formation and he responded with a three-touchdown performance.

His prep school experiences, whatever they were, cooled his enthusiasm for enrolling at a southern university. When he graduated from Augusta there were about 45 schools clamoring for his talent. He chose Ohio State and never regretted it.

Despite the thrill of a three-touchdown game, Stillwagon had no illusions about converting to the backfield. Or any desire to do so. The only other touchdown he scored came in the seventh game of last season when he recovered a fumble and lugged it 20 yards for the winning touchdown against Hamilton.

“Tim Anderson did all the work on it,” Stillwagon recalls. “He hit (Andy) Hopkins so hard that the ball squirted out of his hands. It landed on its end and bounced right into my arms. I didn’t even have to break stride.”

That particular game lasted about a minute too long. A few plays from the finish, Stillwagon tackled Hamilton Quarterback Chuck Ealey. One of his (Stillwagon’s) legs was still in the air when teammate Jim Corrigall ran into it.

Stillwagon played, with moderate success, for two more games before undergoing surgery for cartilage damage to the knee. That kept him out for four more games and the combination of the injury and loss of playing time cost him the All-East and All-Canada recognition he had won in his first two years in the CFL.

The life of a gentleman farmer agrees with Stillwagon. Wife Effie and daughters Nicole and Angela like the Caledon life too. But Jim has no timetable for the too-distant future.

“I’ll be here until I’m 29” he said of his life as an Argo. “I haven’t placed any time limit on football, I enjoy the game and I’ll just keep playing as long as I keep enjoying it.”

Source: C.F.L. Illustrated, Volume V, #7