Watch: CFL inducts players into Hall of Fame
MONTREAL — Wally Buono started out his athletic career as a bit of a misfit. Born in Italy, he emigrated to Montreal as a toddler and chose to play football instead of soccer at a school in Montreal-Nord.
“That’s just the way that it was,” he laughed Friday night.
He ended up with seven CFL titles.
Though he’s probably best known for coaching five Grey Cup champion teams with the Calgary Stampeders and the BC Lions, Buono won two Grey Cups playing for the Alouettes in 1974 and 1977.
“I was always lucky to have some great mentors,” he said. He received his Hall of Fame jacket at a ceremony at a downtown Montreal hotel Friday night.
Buono was one of three former Alouettes who are being inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. All of them said the induction weekend was like coming home.
“It is a homecoming — my youngest daughter was born in Montreal, both my daughters speak fluent French, so for them it seems like home,” said Uzooma Okeke, an offensive tackle who won a Grey Cup with the Als in 2002 and was named the Canadian Football League’s Most Outstanding Lineman in 1999.
This year superstar Ben Cahoon was also inducted. Cahoon lead the CFL in all-time receptions until last year, when Geroy Simon broke his record.
“I’m still dumbfounded. I have no good explanation,” he said when he was asked how an undersized and slow player from Brigham Young University ended up in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Other inductees include Neil Lumsden, who won three Grey Cups with the Eskimos, former Rough Riders kicker Moe Racine, Blue Bomber running back Charles Roberts and longtime college coach Larry Haylor.
The busts of the seven inductees is scheduled to occur at Place Desjardins Saturday afternoon, and the Hall of Fame Game between the Alouettes and the Calgary Stampeders is slated for Sunday.
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