Frank McCrystal needed a few minutes to digest it all after receiving a call from the Hall.
“To be honest with you, initially I was certainly somewhat surprised,” says McCrystal, who was announced on Thursday morning as one of this year’s seven Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees.
“Then it became a little uncomfortable. I was just going, ‘Me?’ And then I thought, ‘Just a minute …’ I had to try and put it in perspective.
“This is not a me thing. This is a we thing.”
That was yet another reminder of how deeply he appreciates everyone with whom he was associated over a remarkable 41 years with the Regina Rams junior and university programs.
A 165-pound linebacker when he joined the Rams in 1972, he starred for and served as a captain with the Gordon Currie-coached powerhouse for five seasons — a period in which the team won three Canadian junior championships.
McCrystal now joins Currie, a 2005 inductee, in the Canadian football shrine.
From 1979 to 1983, McCrystal was an assistant coach on a Jerry Zbytnuik-led Rams staff. The team won two more Canadian Junior Football League titles with McCrystal as the defensive co-ordinator.
Zbytniuk stepped down following the 1983 Prairie Football Conference season, leading to the elevation of McCrystal to head coach.
With McCrystal as the chief strategist — closely associated all the while with offensive co-ordinator and former teammate Bernie Schmidt — the Rams captured the final seven of their 15 Canadian Bowls.
After the Rams won their final CJFL crown in 1998, they became affiliated with the University of Regina and moved to the U Sports ranks.
In only their second year as a university team, the Rams won the Hardy Cup (the Canada West title) and advanced to the Vanier Cup. McCrystal was recognized with national coach-of-the-year honours.
He remained with the Rams through the 2014 season, after which he stepped down. At that point, he had been a member of the team in some capacity for two-thirds of his 60 years.
“Forty-one years with the program …,” he reflects. “I feel really, really lucky to have been involved.
“I have coffee with Bernie, Ed Bankowski, Paul Barnby and Erwin Klempner every Wednesday morning. Erwin and I talk about it and go, ‘We got coached by Gord Currie. Can you imagine that?’ ”
On top of that, an incalculable number of players — Saskatchewan Roughriders Offensive Co-ordinator Marc Mueller included — were coached by McCrystal.
“I’m really happy for Frank and his family,” says Mueller, a former U of R Rams quarterback and assistant coach.
“For me, Frank will always be very special. He coached my dad (Larry). He coached me. My dad coached with him. I coached with him.
“A lot of us are very proud to have played for him. I know I am every day. Now, to see him get something that I think will mean a lot to him and get the recognition nationally, it’s really cool.”
For McCrystal, the priority is to ensure that others receive due recognition.
“Obviously, the first guy I think of is Bernie Schmidt and what he has done, how important he was to the program, and how valued he was by the program,” he says.
“A lot of times, you think about coaches — Bernie Schmidt, Jerry Orban, Rick Seaman.
“Then you think about players, such as Jason Clermont or Neal Hughes or, even back to our playing days, Roger Aldag.
“Then you think about the volunteers who contributed, like Paul Barnby and Doug McKillop and Bob Pelton.
“Those three guys I mentioned did not play for the Rams. They did not have a kid play for the Rams. But they were so committed to the program and to raising the funds for the program and planning things for the program. They’ve been treasurers and team managers and everything.
“It really, really is a Rams award, a program award, as opposed to an individual award.”
McCrystal will nonetheless be celebrated individually on Sept. 20th, when the Canadian Football Hall of Fame Game is played at Hamilton Stadium. The matchup will pit the Hamilton Tiger-Cats against the Edmonton Elks.
Fittingly, the Elks’ coaching staff includes Danny Nesbitt, who was a rookie linebacker with the Rams during McCrystal’s farewell season as a coach. Nesbitt is the Elks’ defensive quality control coach. His father, Greg, was a teammate and coaching colleague of McCrystal’s with the Rams.
Greg Nesbitt is among 15 of McCrystal’s Rams teammates who went on to try out for the Roughriders. Nine of them saw regular-season action with the community-owned CFL team.
As the Rams’ head coach, McCrystal mentored 60 players who auditioned with the Roughriders. Nineteen members of that group became active-roster players.
And then there is Mueller, who tried out for Edmonton and coached with the Calgary Stampeders before joining the Roughriders’ coaching staff in December of 2023.
“Frank used to say all the time, ‘You won the lottery. You got to be born in a great country and you have the opportunity to play football at a great university with a great program. You guys are so lucky to be around the same group every day,’ ” Mueller says.
“He was dead-on right. The more we think about it, we are very blessed and lucky to be in the situations that we’ve been put in and allow that to propel us to other places as well. I’m just so grateful to be able to play for Frank and coach with Frank and stay friends with Frank.”
McCrystal enters the Hall as a builder, as does long-time CFL official Glen Johnson.
Jeremaine Copeland, Bryan Chiu, Jovan Olafioye, Darryl Hall and Scott Flagel are being enshrined as players. Copeland was the Roughriders’ receivers coach in 2015.
With the addition of McCrystal, the Hall now honours seven people who have a connection to the Rams. The others are Aldag, Currie, Bill Baker, Jim Hopson, Tom Shepherd and Ted Urness.
“Initially, when I think about it, I go, ‘This is a pretty impressive group of people,’ ” McCrystal says. “Then I think, ‘Man, did I trick a lot of guys.’
“To be considered with those people — representing the program — I feel pretty lucky and very blessed.”
