Tom Wilkinson (football player)

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Then Prime Minister Joe Clark presents the 1979 Grey Cup to victorious Edmonton Eskimos Danny Kepley and Tom Wilkinson.
Then Prime Minister Joe Clark presents the 1979 Grey Cup to victorious Edmonton Eskimos Danny Kepley and Tom Wilkinson.

Tom Wilkinson was a football quarterback for several teams in the Canadian Football League.

He was born in Iowa on January 4, 1943 but moved to Wyoming with his parents in 1945. Tom Wilkinson played high school football in the small town of Greybull, Wyoming. He is the second of three professional football players to come from this little town of 1700 in the Big Horn Basin. The others were Jim Crawford who played for the Boston Patriots of the American Football League and Brett Keisel who plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was scouted as both a football and baseball player out of high school.

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[edit] Football career

Wilkinson attended the University of Wyoming on a football scholarship. After he graduated there, he was signed as a quarterback by the Toronto Rifles of the Continental Football League. He moved to the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League as a backup quarterback in 1967. Traded to the BC Lions in 1971, he played there for a year before being released prior to the 1972 CFL season. He was picked up by the Edmonton Eskimos and played well enough in the remaining pre-season games to make the team as a backup. Wilkinson would play the balance of his career there. Oddly enough, after his first professional seasons, when he was considered to be rather injury prone, Wilkinson was never to miss a game during his 10 years with the Eskimos.

"Wilkie" was a western conference and CFL all-star quarterback in 1974, 1978 and 1979. He won the CFL's Most Outstanding Player Award in 1974.

He first led the Eskimos to a Grey Cup victory in 1975, an especially sweet triumph after disappointing losses in the championship game in 1973 and 1974. After quarterbacking the Eskimos during one more Grey Cup loss in 1977, Wilkinson became an integral part of the 5-time Grey Cup champion Eskimo dynasty from 1978 through 1981, the last two years acting as a backup to newcomer Warren Moon.

He retired after the Eskimos' 1981 Grey Cup Championship year. Tom Wilkinson was the inaugural player honoured on the Edmonton Eskimo's "Wall of Fame" at Commonwealth Stadium in 1982.

[edit] After retirement

He was elected to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame as a Player, May 2, 1987. He was the head coach of the University of Alberta Golden Bears until 2001. In 2004, he was announced as the first president of the North American Indoor Football League,[1] a Canadian indoor football league that failed to launch and never played a single game.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Terry Jones (2004-06-16). Loopy launch. Edmonton Sun. Retrieved on November 30, 2006.

[edit] External links

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