In case you haven’t noticed, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are currently tied for last in touchdowns — 12 in eight games and one in the last two games — as the Canadian Football League nears the half-time of the 2024 season.
This, folks, is a tragedy of tradition.
Historically, the Bombers are known for scoring records that last a long time — set or equalled during my formative years as a football fan. Yes, in Winnipeg. The most points in one game, by one player, was set 92 years ago! It’s worth noting that touchdowns were worth five points when Eddie (Dynamite) James scored six TDs for St. John’s, a team in the process of becoming the Blue Bombers. His record was equalled by Bob McNamara 24 years later, and five players have made it to five touchdowns, the last of them in 1995.
McNamara scored in every quarter that October 1956 Saturday in Vancouver and one writer called it “the most awe-inspiring display Empire Stadium has witnessed since [Roger} Bannister took [John] Landy” in the famous duel of four-minute milers at the 1954 British Empire Games. McNamara scored all but four of the points in a 40-8 annihilation of the B.C. Lions.
No player since then has come within a touchdown of his record. The five players with five touchdowns are also second to McNamara in points (30).
In playoff games, the records for most touchdowns (also six), rushing touchdowns (six) and points (30) have all belonged to another Winnipeg running back — for 81 years. Lorne (Boom Boom) Benson almost single-handedly destroyed Saskatchewan 43-5 in 1953, when touchdowns were worth five points. And the record for the most touchdown passes caught in a regular-season game (five) was set by Ernie Pitts (yes, a Bombers receiver) and still stands.
These six records for touchdowns and points haven’t been broken, combined, for 438 years!
Ironically, the CFL’s Hall of Fame has been less than welcoming to these record-holders. James, who played just two seasons in Winnipeg and just seven in the league, was a charter HOF member, five years after he died. James was joined, of these “four horsemen” in 2019 by Pitts, 48 years after he died.
Benson, a bruising Canadian running back cut from the cloth of James, wasn’t around long enough (five seasons) to become as famous as he was in that day against Saskatchewan. The Bombers replaced him with McNamara, who’d been an All-American at two positions. With a then-stylish brush cut and a clean-cut personality which lasted until he died at 81, McNamara was revered at the University of Minnesota. His pro career was cut short by ravaging knee injuries the season before (and after) his touchdown records. Otherwise merely a footnote in Bombers’ history, McNamara went home to Minneapolis and became a legend off the field at his alma mater.
He promoted and fund-raised for the Gophers, athletically and scholastically. He had a hand in building stadiums and creating scholarships. He and his brother are credited with saving university sports that were on the chopping block — not football, but tennis, gymnastics and golf. There’s an academic centre named after him on campus.
For McNamara, that was surely more meaningful than his six-touchdown game.
