![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Bray.png\")
<\/p>\nHis is a name from the Toronto Argonauts past, not long enough in a 152-year-old franchise\u2019s life to be called its ancient history, but enough time has passed since he retired for most fans to need a refresher, if not an introduction.<\/p>\n
Charlie Bray was an all-star guard on one of the most popular teams ever to wear Double Blue, Leo Cahill\u2019s teams from the late 60s\/early 70s. Twice named a CFL all-star, with a divisional nod thrown in for good measure, Bray, along with tackle Bill Frank, were the key people movers up front that allowed the likes of Bill Symons, Dave Raimey, and Leon McQuay to work their magic as running backs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bray had been playing for Orlando in the Continental Football League, coached by Perry Moss, who had played college football at Illinois with Cahill. Moss called his old teammate to tell him about Bray, who had another suitor at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had the chance to sign with the Cleveland Browns or Toronto,\u201d Bray told Argonauts.ca. \u201cCleveland offered me $12,000 and a $2,000 signing bonus, Toronto offered me $15,000 and a $4,000 signing bonus. I said, \u2018I\u2019m not patriotic, I\u2019m going where the money is.\u201d<\/p>\n
How different was that era? Not only did the Argos outbid the NFL for Bray, but the American dollar was only worth roughly 92 cents Canadian in 1968. The offensive lineman had hit the financial motherlode.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d play for Cahill until the coach was fired following the 1972 season. Bray would play one additional year in Toronto before re-connecting with \u201cLeo the Lip\u201d in 1974 with Cahill\u2019s Memphis Southmen of the World Football League.<\/p>\n
The coach was someone that rarely elicited an indifferent reaction. Players, and basically anyone who knew or knew of Cahill had a strong opinion of him. Bray was someone who enjoyed his time with the coach.<\/p>\n
I liked Leo, Leo was alright,\u201d said Bray. \u201cA lot of guys didn\u2019t like Leo\u2019s ways, but that\u2019s alright. He treated all the guys pretty well the same, but some guys didn\u2019t like that because they thought he was a little soft. But that was his nature, he was a good-hearted person, and I thought he was a great coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Argos of that era were a collection of not only talented football players, but a team filled with characters. There were extremely outgoing people like Mel Profit and Dick Thornton, intellectuals like Mike Eben, brash youngsters like Joe Thiesmann, country folk like Bill Symons, and type-A football junkies like Pete Martin.<\/p>\n
Where did Bray think he fit into this eccentric football family?<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I was a knucklehead,\u201d said the Pittsburgh native with a laugh. \u201cWhen I came up, I didn\u2019t have a lot of discipline, but I fit right in with them because I was in all kinds of trouble and stuff, but that\u2019s a part of life. They taught us to be hostile, mobile, and agile, no control. That\u2019s what I was missing coming up as I didn\u2019t have much control being raised by a single parent. Bobby Taylor was like that, he didn\u2019t have control, Leon McQuay was like that. We had a lot of guys like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But somehow it worked. The team came painfully close to winning the \u201971 Grey Cup, the only Argos Grey Cup appearance between 1952-82. That didn\u2019t mean the Boatmen didn\u2019t have some memorable games in that era, far from it.<\/p>\n
Bray was involved in one of the most memorable plays in Argonaut history, selected as the team\u2019s 69th top moment as a part of the team\u2019s 150th anniversary celebrations in 2023. In a 1968 playoff game against Hamilton, Bill Symons took a handoff, followed his then rookie guard to the right, then used the hole Bray helped create to rush for a 100-yard touchdown, still the longest rushing play in CFL post-season history.<\/p>\n
Said Symons of the run, \u201cWally Gabler handed the ball of to me, and I just followed big Charlie Bray.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BillSymons33_colour-800x535.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Bray lined up at right guard and chipped one Ti-cat player and rolled into a second, with Symons hitting the hole caused by #57.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we pulled,\u201d Bray recalled, \u201cI said I\u2019m going to try to get one of two of these guys and Bill will maybe be able to get a few yards. I came around the corner and just rolled like a bowling ball and I got a couple of them. Bill was a great running back, Dave Raimey too. When we ran a sweep, they would go out like they were running outside, then cut back inside of me. They got the outside guys in a great position to be blocked.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/charlie-and-symons.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Teammates Charlie Bray and Bill Symons reunited at the Argos 150th celebration reunion in 2023.<\/p>\n
Bray has stayed in Ontario since retiring after one final season with the Tiger Cats in 1976, spending most of his time in Toronto and now living in St. Catharines. It\u2019s not unusual to see him at games or Argonaut Alumni Association events, broadly smiling his way through each gathering. He\u2019s still active with youth sports despite turning 80 years old last September.<\/p>\n
That youth sport is sumo wrestling.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter I got out of football I said I must research sumo because I was always intrigued by leverage and position,\u201d Bray explained. \u201cI was always a little shorter than the guys, so I had leverage on them automatically. I started researching sumo because I liked the way the sumo guys came off the line and made that smack. I realized it\u2019s all about leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then corralled eight former players and they started performing sumo wrestling at sporting events in Canada and the U.S., for instance, doing a halftime exhibition at football games. But it wasn\u2019t that aspect of sumo that appealed most to Bray.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized it\u2019s the training regimen,\u201d he said. \u201cI wish I had that at a young age because it teaches you self-control, it teaches you discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Bray was a great athlete, he wishes he had learned the philosophies of sumo while he was still playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have been 100-percent better. During the season I\u2019d run hard and work hard on the football field, but I\u2019d be doing other crazy stuff (off the field). You\u2019ve got to sacrifice during the season, you can\u2019t be running around doing this, doing that, because every game you want to be the same. If you can balance what you do off the field and on the field, you\u2019ll see the end results and be productive all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI signed a deal with Youth Assisting Youth in Toronto, they provide programs for kids. We also work with the Salvation Army in Buffalo. I\u2019ll get a group of kids together in Toronto and starting training them, and we\u2019ll get a group of kids in Buffalo and train them, then we\u2019re going to compete against each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s done it before, working with the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre, working with at risk kids, kids with disabilities, and other youngsters, having the kids mix with one another into what Bray described as \u201ca beautiful cake.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next step is to raise funds so they can animate their program to give children outside of the area the opportunity to benefit from their work and the discipline of sumo. To find out more about Bray\u2019s work, visit sumoraiteams.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His is a name from the Toronto Argonauts past, not long enough in a 152-year-old franchise\u2019s life to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-580054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}