Joe Marchildon

Joseph Marchildon
Born: December 31, 1962 (Barrie, Ontario)
Died: June 22, 2014 (Montréal)

Joe Marchildon was an assistant football coach for the McGill University Redmen of Montreal for nine seasons. He also had responsibility for recruiting athletes to the football program.

He was hired in 1990 as an assistant to head coach Charlie Baillie. Marchildon coached the offensive line before later taking on duties as the offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and strength and conditioning coordinator.

Marchildon graduated from York University in Toronto in 1988. He was a defensive end, an offensive guard and a centre for the Yeomen from 1984-88. A highlight of his collegiate career was returning an interception 90 yards for a touchdown in a 32-1 victory over the Waterloo Warriors in his freshman season. He was a conference second-team all-star in 1987 and was named the Yeoman’s most-valuable player in 1988.

Marchildon was selected in the sixth round of the 1987 CFL draft by the Saskatchewan Roughriders, though he was cut during training camp. He later had a tryout with the Edmonton Eskimos and the NFL’s New England Patriots.

He spent two seasons as a playing coach with the Chelmsford Cherokees in England before being hired by McGill. After leaving the university, he taught physical education at Montréal-area high schools.

The family was profiled in Quebec newspapers after his wife battled with Quebec’s health insurance board to get treatment in the United States for a rare signet cell carcinoma. Ella Shepherd Marchildon died in October, 2013, aged 49. Joe Marchildon died of prostate cancer at the West Island Palliative Care Centre at suburban Kirkland, Que. He was 51. He leaves two daughters, three sons, and grandchildren.

Ken McCullough

1971 Chevron card

Kenneth Waldo McCullough
Born: July 24, 1933 (Bartlesville, Oklahoma)
Died: June 22, 2014 (Tuscaloosa, Alabama)

 

Ken McCullough was an offensive line coach in the CFL for seven seasons. He was hired by Saskatchewan head coach Eagle Keys in 1969, the year in which the Roughriders lost the Grey Cup by 29-11 to the Ottawa Rough Riders.

Keys brought McCullough with him to Vancouver when he was hired to be head coach of the B.C. Lions in 1971. The Lions were rebuilding and missed the playoffs the first two seasons under Keys’ direction. A bright note was the arrival of guard Al Wilson from Duncan, B.C., who would become the team’s centre and a stalwart of the offensive line under McCullough’s guidance.

Keys was fired in 1975 and, after completing the season, McCullough quit in March, 1976. He was hired to be offensive line coach of the NFL’s Houston Oilers under head coach Bum Phillips.

McCullough got a full football scholarship to Oklahoma A&M College (now Oklahoma Statue University) in Stillwater, Okla., playing for the Aggies under coach J.B. Whitworth from 1951-54. He made the varsity squad as a freshman owing to his strength as a punter. He averaged 39 yards per punt in 1952.

The “scrappy wingman,” as the Ardmore (Okla.) Daily Ardmorite described him, also played end and tied for the team lead in points in 1952 with 24. McCullough was a regular on the Missouri Valley Conference team for his four seasons as an undergraduate, despite suffering ankle injuries and a broken arm.

He graduated with a science degree in agriculture in 1955, the same year in which he married Joanne Timmons, a classmate from Ardmore who worked as a stewardess. He signed with the Edmonton Eskimos and came north to join the Western Interprovincial Football Union team in August. He kicked a single in a preseason exhibition game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Edmonton. Despite that contribution, he was one of six imports placed on waivers by the Eskimos before the start of the regulars season.

McCullough, who was a member of the army infantry Reserve Officers Training Corps while on campus, received a commision as 2^nd Lieutenant after completing an officers course in 1956. He would be a captain by the time he retired from the Army Reserve. It was while stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas that he began his coaching career, handling the army’s 1^st Division team.

McCullough spent 12 years coaching high school and university football in Texas before joining the staff of the Roughriders.

After a year as an assistant coach in the NFL, McCullough went into business before returning to coaching high school teams at Copperas Cove, Tex., and Tuscaloosa, Ala.

He died at Northport Medical Center in Tuscaloose on June 22, aged 80. He leaves his second wife, Edna Duckworth McCullough, whom he married in 1982. He also leaves three daughters and a son from his marriage to the former Joanne Timmons, who survives him. Other survivors include a stepdaughter and a stepson; a sister; a brother; 19 grandchildren; and, nine great-grandchildren.

 B.C. Lions coaching staff in 1974 (from left) Dick Zomes, Ken McCullough, Eagle Keys and Cal Murphy. Murphy succeeded Keys as head coach the following season.

Set Branham

Franklin Delano Branham
Born: September 25, 1928 (Prestonsburg, Kentucky)
Died: May 17, 2014 (St. George, Utah)

 

Frank (Set) Branham played halfback briefly for the Regina Roughriders in the 1954 season. He was cut at the import deadline, losing his job to fellow American Ken Carpenter, a former Cleveland Brown who had a no-cut clause in his contract.

Branham was invited to the camp of the Toronto Argonauts the next season, competing against Whizzer White, formerly of the Chicago Bears, but a knee injury suffered in a preseason scrimmage brought an end to his brief professional career. Branham had been one of 15 imports seeking 10 spots on the roster.

He was a three-sport star at Prestonsburg (Ky.) High, where he was an all-state athlete in football, basketball and baseball. He led the Black Cats high school team to many victories, including a dramatic win over the rival Pineville (Ky.) Mountain Lions in the inaugural Flood Bowl Classic in 1947. Branham led the come-from-behind win, the most dramatic points coming on an unexpected 29-yard field goal from a sharp angle — on a drop kick.

After graduating in 1949, Branham played halfback for the University of Utah. Early in his junior year, Branham walked off the team with a friend, spending a few miserable, penniless days in Tucson, Ariz., before the football coach dispatched a car to pick him up and bring him back to campus for his first square meal in several days.

The player explained the episode to sports columnist Hack Miller of the Deseret News in 1951. “Well, Mr. Miller, I got cold, hungry and broke. I called mama and she was disappointed in me. She wants me to finish my education at Utah. I have decided to come back and do it. I made a great mistaje when I walked off the football team.”

His coach, Jack Curtice, suspended him from the team. “Set’s a good lad and while i feel sorry fir him I feel most for his widowed mother who is working day and night to keep a family in Kentucky.”

Branham returned to the squad the following fall. In a game at Fort Collins, Colo., on Nov. 8, 1952, Branham took a punt from the Colorado A&M at his own 20 before racing 80 yards for the major. “Branham’s electrifying touchdown run clearly broke the back of the Rams,” reported the Salt Lake Tribune, “and they then would have had to score two touchdowns to win the game.” The Utes won, 14-6, and Branham went on to earn All-Skyline Conference honours. He left the school with a degree in physical education. At the time, he was the third highest scorer in Utes’ history.

Born in 1928, Franklin Delano Branham carried the same given names as Franklin D. Roosevelt, the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for vice-president eight years earlier who, two months after the boy’s birth, was elected governor of New York on his march to the presidency. Branham’s father, Lewis, died of tuberculosis in 1934. His widowed mother, Fanny, left Kentucky during the war to construct bombers in Detroit. His high school retired his No. 52 uniform in a ceremony in 2009.

He died in Utah of pancreatic cancer, aged 88. He leaves his wife, Judy; two children; and, two grandsons.

Bill Quinter

http://www.FootballCardGallery.com

Bill Quinter

Born: October 2, 1939 (Takoma Park, Maryland)
Died: April, 2014 (West Kelowna, British Columbia)

Bill Quinter spent 34 years in the Canadian Football League as a player, coach and general manager. He spent another 11 seasons working for National Football League teams.

Born in Maryland, Quinter dreamed of playing for the NFL’s Washington Redskins. He attended Indiana University, where he was a tight end and defensive end for the Hoosiers from 1959-61.

In 1962, he played with the Redskins in preseason exhibition games only to be a late cut. He then signed with the Ottawa Rough Riders.

The 6-foot-2, 238-pound two-way player spent four seasons with the Rough Riders. He also worked as a teacher at Rideau High, where a fellow teacher was Russ Jackson, the Rough Riders’ Canadian quarterback. His final games were played against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in a two-game, total points Eastern championship series lost by Ottawa in 1965.

Quinter worked as an assistant football coach at the University of Pittsburgh, mostly working as an advance scout for the Pitt Panthers. He was earlier an offensive line coach at Indiana State University.

He returned to Canada to be an assistant coach with the Toronto Argonauts. He joined the B.C. Lions in 1977 as an assistant under head coach Vic Rapp before being promoted to director of player personnel five years later. Quinter left Vancouver to become general manager of the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1985, a job he held two seasons before being fired.

He then became player personnel director with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. After three seasons, he returned to the Lions as director of player personnel under general manager and head coach Bob O’Billovich, his former teammate in Ottawa. Quinter was fired by the Lions in 1995 after losing a power struggle with general manager Eric Tillman.

The Seattle Seahawks hired Quinter as a scout, who was promoted to be the NFL team’s professional scouting director after two years. The New Orleans Saints hired him as player personnel assistant in 2000.

As a youth, he worked at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. He changed the numbers on the score board during Senators baseball games and served hot dogs during Redskins football games.

In 1987, Quinter married the former Christine Ritchin, the mother of future British Columbia MLA Judi Tyabji. She predeceased her husband, dying in 2012, aged 66. He leaves two sons, four stepdaughters, 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Roy Brown

Roy Coventry Brown

Born: May 11, 1938
Died: January 25, 2014 (Penticton, British Columbia)

For 29 years, Roy Brown served as the “Voice of the ’Riders” as the stadium announcer at Taylor Field in Regina.

His voice was familiar to generations of Saskatchewan Roughriders fans, as he described plays, announced future dates, and generally kept the fans informed. He was also not above the occasional editorial comment. In 1996, when the Ottawa franchise threatened to go bankrupt, he told the crowd, “The Roughriders’ next home game is Sept. 15. Somebody will play the Roughriders at 2 p.m.”

His tenure included several seasons of struggle for a team cheered by die-hard fans known for Rider Pride.

“Fans grumble but they never give up,” he told the reporter Dave Margoshes in 1998. “There’s a kind of prairie stick-with-itness that says you just don’t jump ship.”

Brown launched his radio career in 1958 at CKBI at Prince Albert, Sask. He later worked for CKRD at Red Deer, Alta., WECL at Eau Claire, Wis., CKRM at Regina, and CKCK radio and television. He also handled public relations.

After retiring to Penticton, B.C., he became the announcer for the Penticton Vees junior team.