Honoring a legend

SARASOTA — Robin Clair Mason was never really into sports.

But as the Sarasota resident stood clad in an Ottawa Redblacks jersey bearing her name, alongside her son, Chris, 22, for the team’s game versus the British Columbia Lions, she couldn’t help but smile.

Although, for Clair Mason, the day was about more than football or the Redblacks’ inaugural season. It was about honoring Canadian Football League coaching legend Frank Clair — her father.

From her spot on the sideline inside TD Place Stadium, Clair Mason waved to the more than 24,000 fans in attendance, as a video of her father’s 25-year career in Ottawa played on the stadium’s jumbotron.

Prior to the on-field dedication, Clair Mason, a model hostess for Lee Wetherington, helped unveil a new bronze statue of her father. The statue depicts the late Siesta Key resident in his signature suit, trench coat and hat while holding a play sheet.

With her son and husband, Peter Mason, looking on, Clair Mason thanked the Ottawa community and the CFL for supporting her father and his family throughout his career.

“It was very emotional,” Clair Mason says. “I was extremely proud of my father, although I’ve always been extremely proud of him. I was happy my son was able to share in the moment because he never got to experience him actually (coach) football.”

Peter Mason agrees.

“The whole thing was surreal,” he says.

COACHING LEGEND
A native of Hamilton, Ohio, Frank Clair attended Ohio State University on a swimming scholarship.

Shortly after he arrived on campus, Clair was approached by then head football coach Francis Schmidt about joining the Buckeyes’ defensive unit. Clair played defensive end, as well as some wide receiver, for Ohio State from 1938 to 1940.

That same year, the Washington Redskins drafted Clair. He spent a year playing in the NFL before he was called to serve in World War II.

It was while serving overseas in the U.S. Army that Clair landed his first coaching job and coached his team to victory in the European Championship.

Following the war, Clair returned home to Ohio where he served as an assistant coach at Miami University. He then went on to Purdue University and the University of Cincinnati before landing his first collegiate head coaching job at the University at Buffalo in 1948.

Clair spent two seasons coaching the Bulls before transitioning to the Canadian Football League in 1950.
He coached the Toronto Argonauts from 1950 to 1954 and won two Grey Cups in 1950 and 1952. Two days before Clair won his first championship, his only child was born.

“They called me ‘the Grey Cup baby,’” Clair Mason says.

In 1956, Clair joined the Ottawa Rough Riders where he spent the next 25 years winning three Grey Cups as coach and two more as the team’s general manager.

As a child, Clair Mason would spend many evenings curled up on her father’s lap in front of the big screen watching reels of film. She would hold the clicker, stopping the play whenever her father deemed necessary.

“He was 24/7 football,” Clair Mason says. “Those (nights) were my fondest memories.”

Nicknamed “The Professor,” Clair is the third most successful head coach in the CFL with 147 wins and the most successful head coach in the postseason with 27 wins.

He was named the CFL’s coach of the year in 1966 and 1969, and many of Clair’s players eventually went on to become coaches in the CFL themselves.

PERMANENT HONOR
Clair officially retired from football in 1978 and was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1981. Upon retirement, George Halas, who was the coach of the Chicago Bears at the time, contacted Clair about helping scout potential players from Florida, Florida State and Miami. Clair Mason spent close to three years going on recruiting trips with her father.

Clair and his wife, Pat, retired to Siesta Key full-time in the mid 1980s. In 1993, the stadium at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa was renamed Frank Clair Stadium. Five years later, Clair was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.

Clair died April 3, 2005, at the age of 87. His wife, now 90, still resides on Siesta Key in the same home the couple purchased more than three decades ago.

Following his death, the CFL franchise in Ottawa folded due to poor ownership, and the stadium bearing his name fell into disrepair. In a joint venture with the city, part of the stadium was torn down and rebuilt while the remainder was renovated to include minor league hockey, soccer and football.

In January, the Frank Clair Stadium was renamed TD Place Stadium. Shortly thereafter, John Ruddy, a friend and former neighbor of the Clair family who had purchased the stadium along with the city, contacted Clair Mason about doing something to once again honor her father.

The two bounced several ideas around, including naming a street after him, before eventually settling on the bronze statue.

“It was just such an honor to have my father’s legacy memorialized in something as permanent as a bronze statue,” Clair Mason says. “Names of stadiums change, but bronze statues (are forever).”

A street, Frank Clair Way, leading from the statue into the stadium also was named in Clair’s honor.

“He was a very quiet man,” Clair Mason says of her father. “He would be extremely humbled by this.”

Contact Jen Blanco at [email protected].