One of the greatest defensive players in Saskatchewan Roughriders history has died.<\/p>\n
The Roughriders announcing Monday the passing of longtime defensive lineman and linebacker Garner Ekstran, who died of natural causes Saturday at the age of 86 in Sedro-Woolley, Wash.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/p>\n
Ekstran spent seven of his eight CFL seasons with the Roughriders between 1961 and 1967, becoming a three-time all-CFL selection and dressing in 116 career regular season and playoff games in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
He was a key member of Saskatchewan\u2019s 1966 Grey Cup champion roster, co-leading the team with six tackles including a key defensive stop which led to the game-winning touchdown in a 29-14 victory over the Ottawa Rough Riders in the 54th Grey Cup.<\/p>\n
Helping Saskatchewan earn its first Grey Cup title in franchise history, Ekstran was inducted into the Roughriders\u2019 Plaza of Honour in 1990.<\/p>\n
Earning Saskatchewan\u2019s Most Outstanding Lineman award in 1961 as a rookie and again in 1963, he went on to earn all-CFL honours in 1962, 1963 and in 1967 before ending his career with the BC Lions.<\/p>\n
He was also one of four Washington State standouts on the Roughriders\u2019 roster in the 1960s alongside George Reed, Wally Dempsey and Hugh Campbell.<\/p>\n
Following his CFL career, Ekstran moved back to his home state of Washington where he became a dairy farmer and spent 62 years married to his wife Marge she died in 2023.<\/p>\n
Ekstran is survived by his three children, two grandchilden and a sister.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the greatest defensive players in Saskatchewan Roughriders history has died. The Roughriders announcing Monday the passing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-587052","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\/587052","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=587052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}