Dick Aldridge

Richard Frederick Aldridge (January 19, 1941 – June 26, 2004) was a player in the Canadian Football League. Aldridge played linebacker and running back for the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats from 1965 to 1974. He died of pancreatic cancer in 2004.

College and CFL draft A star football and basketball player at Runnymede Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Dick Aldridge attended the University of Waterloo from 1960 to 1965, where he captained the basketball and football teams and was a three-time OUAA all-star half back. Originally drafted by the B.C. Lions in the 1964 CFL draft, Aldridge was traded first to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and then, in the summer of 1965, to the Toronto Argonauts.

Toronto Dick Aldridge played nine seasons for the Toronto Argonauts from 1965 to 1973, playing in virtually every game from his rookie season onwards, for a total of 117 regular season and 6 playoff games. Dick Aldridge played in the 14–11 loss to the Calgary Stampeders in the 1971 Grey Cup game in Vancouver, made notorious in Canadian sporting history by Leon McQuay's slip and fumble seven yards from the Stampeders' endzone with fewer than two minutes left in the game.

Hamilton Dick Aldridge retired from the Argonauts prior to the 1974 season, after John Rauch changed the start-time for team practices from four o'clock to noon, which would have made it impossible for Aldridge to continue in his day job as a high school teacher. However, he was then contacted by Hamilton, whose practices were scheduled later in the day. He joined the Tiger-Cats for the 1974 season, playing in 10 games and making one interception, Following his death, Aldridge's family established and organized an annual charity golf tournament, the Dick Aldridge Charity Golf Classic, to raise funds for pancreatic cancer research. By its tenth anniversary in 2014, this event had raised over $750,000.