VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Eagle Keys, the Canadian Football Hall of Famer who played in the 1954 Grey Cup on a broken leg and coached Saskatchewan to its first CFL title, died Thursday. He was 89.
Keys won Grey Cups as a center and linebacker with Montreal in 1949 and Edmonton in 1954, playing the final game of his career with a broken bone in his knee in the Eskimos’ upset victory over the Alouettes.
Keys began his coaching career as an assistant in Edmonton in 1955 and was the Eskimos’ head coach from 1959-63. He coached Saskatchewan from 1965-70, leading the Roughriders to the Grey Cup title in 1966, and directed the British Columbia Lions from 1971-75.
A former football and baseball star at Western Kentucky, Keys was inducted to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame as a builder in 1990.
