REGINA – Craig Smith, a longtime CFL scout, has died. He was 69 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith’s wife, Cathy, announced her husband’s death Sunday on social media. Smith was diagnosed with leukemia in October 2017 but had been battling a number of health ailments the past few years.<\/p>\n
Smith, a Winnipeg native, began his CFL career as an offensive quality control coach with the B.C. Lions in 2000, a year after serving as a guest coach with the club.<\/p>\n
The Lions won a Grey Cup in 2000 and Smith later served as the club’s player-personnel coordinator. He joined the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as their player-personnel director in 2005, serving in that role for three seasons before rejoining the Lions.<\/p>\n
Smith became the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ player-personnel director in 2010 and was part of the organization’s 2013 Grey Cup-winning squad. Smith remained with the Riders through the 2015 season before joining the hometown Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n
Smith was a national scout with Winnipeg when it was announced in October 2017 that he was stepping away after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith went into remission following a stem-cell transplant but endured a number of health complications, including congestive heart failure.<\/p>\n
“Craig was a respected football mind, a valued colleague, and a cherished friend to so many across the CFL community,\u201d the Blue Bombers said in a statement. “His passion for the game, his generosity of spirit, and his kindness left a lasting impact on everyone who had the privilege of working alongside him.<\/p>\n
“We extend our heartfelt condolences to Craig’s family, friends, and loved ones during this difficult time.”<\/p>\n
In March, Smith and his wife attended the CFL combine, which was held in Regina.<\/p>\n
In a story on the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ website, Smith said growing up he knew the roster of every CFL team by heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“My mother used to go crazy with all the pieces of paper I would have all over the place,\u201d he told Rob Vanstone, the Riders senior journalist. \u201cI tried to keep on top of everything.”<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 24, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REGINA – Craig Smith, a longtime CFL scout, has died. He was 69 years old.\u00a0 Smith’s wife, Cathy,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-94847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94847","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=94847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}