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SURREY, B.C. — Many of the B.C. Lions' players and coaches were at the team's practice complex in suburban Vancouver Sunday, belatedly celebrating the U.S. Fourth of July with a family barbecue and trying to forget the team's 0-2 start to the CFL season.
Several hours later, there were no festivities, only immense sadness and many tears when news came that Bob Ackles, 69, the B.C. Lions' president and chief executive officer, had suffered a fatal heart attack near the family's cabin on Howe Sound.
Ackles's death brought the Lions' complex and the CFL to a standstill Sunday as mourners dealt with shock. Though he stood barely 51/2 feet tall and never played professionally, Ackles was a giant of the game. He authored a storybook career with his hometown team and walked with U.S. football royalty during a sojourn to the NFL before returning to Vancouver and reviving a dormant Lions franchise earlier this decade.
His death hit the team so hard Sunday that general manager and head coach Wally Buono, one of the toughest and most emotionally level men in the game, broke down in tears at a hastily called news conference.
CFL stalwart Bob Ackles was an opponent of the Bills playing NFL games in Toronto. (Chuck Stoody/CP)
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"Football was a big part of Bob's life," Buono said, needing to stop in mid-sentence to compose himself.
Ackles died Sunday morning on Bowen Island near the family's retreat on a nearby island. Ackles owned a yacht that he and his wife, Kay, used to sail in the area. Buono said Ackles had recently began taking days off to spend leisure time on the boat with his family.
He leaves Kay, two sons and five grandchildren. Son Scott Ackles is the president of the Calgary Stampeders. Funeral services had not been arranged as of last night.
"It was our league that virtually adopted him when he was just a boy, and it's our league that has looked to him as a man for counsel, inspiration and leadership by example," CFL commissioner Mark Cohon said in a statement. "We've lost one of the true greats. His contribution was so tremendous, and our gratitude is so profound, they exceed even the deep sense of loss we feel today."
Ackles's career in football began humbly as the Lions' first water boy in 1953, before the team had even begun competing in the CFL. Those roots served as his legacy.
Though he never liked being called "the water boy" in his earlier years, Ackles later embraced the mantra and used it as his calling card. A team of community business leaders who promote and sponsor the Lions became known as the Waterboys, and it was also in the title of his memoir, published last September. His yacht is named Waterbuoy.
Ackles worked his way up to general manager by 1975, joking in later life that he never expected to be more than an assistant equipment manager, the first promotion from water boy. He delivered the franchise's first championship in 21 seasons when the Lions defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the 73rd Grey Cup game in 1985. The next season, Ackles departed for the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. He spent the next 15 years serving in front-office capacities with four NFL franchises.
In the United States, Ackles worked with and befriended head coach Jimmy Johnson, who guided the Cowboys to two Super Bowl titles in the early 1990s and hired Ackles when he moved to the Miami Dolphins in 1996.
In 2000, Ackles became the vice-president and general manager of the Las Vegas Outlaws of the defunct XFL. That made Ackles the only man to serve as a football executive in the NFL, CFL and XFL.
Two years later, the Lions were struggling at the gate, averaging just 18,507 a game and having a season-ticket base of less than 6,000. Ackles, who liked to paint and draw, was enrolled at a fine-arts program at a Las Vegas university, but accepted an offer from Lions owner David Braley to return to Vancouver and rebuild the franchise's relevance to the community.
Ackles recruited Buono from the Stampeders, and the team won the 2006 Grey Cup. This year, the Lions have 24,000 season-ticket subscribers and have averaged more than 30,000 a game for the past three years.
"He's just been a remarkable force," said Stampeders governor and former CFL commissioner Doug Mitchell, who first met Ackles in 1960 when he played for the Lions. "We started the Horsemen here based on what he did in Vancouver [with the Waterboys]. We figured it was a great way to get back into the corporate community. Bob was always thinking about what he could do to help the Lions."
Ackles is a member of the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame (elected in 2004) and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame as a builder (elected in 2002). His football résumé stands alone among Canadians, and his passion for the game north of the border led to him lobby politicians on the CFL's behalf earlier this year.
Ever since the NFL's Buffalo Bills announced they will be playing games at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ackles championed the charge for cultural protection of the CFL, arguing that the league would disappear without corporate and fan support in Southern Ontario.
Ackles was born in Sarnia, Ont., and raised on Vancouver's west side. He played football at Vancouver College and later in junior with the Vancouver Blue Bombers. He was a football lifer who used to sleep in the equipment room while working his way up with the Lions. After becoming successful, Ackles served on the board of directors of the Vancouver YMCA and the Canadian Tourism Commission.
"He was generous in his spirit and adamant in his belief that football in Canada is a community game," B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell said in a statement. "He reached out across the province to the youngest fan and the oldest football aficionado. He built a team, and as he did, he strengthened our province and our country."
George Chayka, the Lions' vice-president of business, said no immediate replacement will be appointed to fill Ackles's post. Chayka will continue to oversee the club's financial affairs, while Buono will run the football department.
"If you knew Bob, the way he would've wanted us to handle this is to get on with football and get on with business," Chayka said. "That's what we're going to do starting tomorrow."
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