The Smiths were a magnet for a seemingly never-ending procession of CFL people. As much as he appreciated all the good wishes, it was his priority to take in every millisecond of the on-field workouts at the AffinityPlex.<\/p>\n
From his wheelchair, he took notes and shuffled through assorted rosters and charts.<\/p>\n
We chatted after the afternoon session \u2014 but only after a who\u2019s who of Canadian professional football visited with Craig and Cathy at Hug Central.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought I\u2019d ever get back,\u201d Craig said. \u201cI am so grateful for all the support people have given us. I can\u2019t emphasize enough how great Cathy has been through my journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll tell you, it was fantastic to come out here. When you\u2019re in the CFL for 20 years, you get to know a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over those 20 years, he spent time with the Roughriders, Blue Bombers, B.C. Lions and Hamilton Tiger-Cats.<\/p>\n
While with the Lions, he placed a University of North Carolina Tar Heels quarterback named Darian Durant on the negotiation list.<\/p>\n
By the time Craig joined the Roughriders in 2010, Durant was already well-established as the team\u2019s marquee quarterback. They shared in an unforgettable home-field Grey Cup victory on Nov. 24, 2013, at historic Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n
It was the second CFL championship for Craig, who also earned a Grey Cup ring with the 2000 Lions.<\/p>\n
Craig was also closely tied to Roughriders history before joining the Green and White. While with the Tiger-Cats, he got to know Ron Lancaster.<\/p>\n
They routinely ate lunch together, in the cherished company of Bernie Curtis, and once upon a time travelled together to a Tiger-Cats game in Toronto.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the time we got out of the car to the time we got into the stadium, it was like I was walking with the prime minister,\u201d Craig told me for another Leader-Post story, just a few days after the 101st Grey Cup Game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was, \u2018Hey, Ron, how are you doing?\u2019 Everybody knew him and everybody loved him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same could be said of Craig Smith as a member of the fraternal CFL community.<\/p>\n
The closest relationship, of course, was with his amazing wife.<\/p>\n
Craig and Cathy were married on Sept. 14, 1985. The date was chosen for the specific purpose of not coinciding with a Blue Bombers home game.<\/p>\n
By the early 1990s, the Smiths had moved to Vancouver. They were both employed by the University of British Columbia \u2014 Cathy in communications and Craig as a computer operator.<\/p>\n
Then, by sheer happenstance, Craig spotted a newspaper advertisement.<\/p>\n
A coach was required for a Vancouver-area pee wee football team. Craig was quick to respond.<\/p>\n
At that point, he had not been actively involved in football since suffering a fractured neck as a 19-year-old player with the St. Vital Mustangs juvenile squad.<\/p>\n
Given an opportunity to renew a direct affiliation with football, coaching became an obsession. He read every possible book on coaching and football strategy. If there was a coaching clinic or a free-agent camp, you could bet the mortgage that Craig would be there.<\/p>\n
Uhhhh, about the mortgage \u2026<\/p>\n
At considerable risk to the family\u2019s finances, Craig took a leave of absence from his position at the UBC in the mid-1990s so he could immerse himself in his duties as a member of the Thunderbirds\u2019 coaching staff.<\/p>\n
At that point, the Smiths were heavily dependent on Cathy\u2019s income.<\/p>\n
\u201cCathy made sacrifices,\u201d her proud husband told me for the 2013 L-P profile. \u201cShe got breast cancer in 1997 and it changed our lives, obviously.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018Go for your dream, because you never know when it could end.\u2019 The philosophy was \u2018go for that goal,\u2019 and we did. It paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Informally, the Smiths were a package deal.<\/p>\n
Cathy accompanied Craig on many of his scouting excursions.<\/p>\n
They were based in Texas, a noted football hotbed, during many a Canadian winter.<\/p>\n
As one who loved to travel and meet people, Craig was a natural for a player-personnel position.<\/p>\n
He could scout players or, if need be, restaurants.<\/p>\n
We discovered that during one visit to New York.<\/p>\n
Until arriving in Gotham, we did not know that our springtime getaway coincided with that of the Smiths.<\/p>\n
We hadn\u2019t planned to vacation together but, fortuitously, it turned out that way.<\/p>\n
There we were at a New York Yankees game, on the Staten Island Ferry, and at a midtown Manhattan steakhouse \u2014\u00a0Frankie and Johnny\u2019s \u2014\u00a0that served one of the best meals ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd do you remember the pizza?\u201d Craig asked during our final visit.<\/p>\n
As mentioned earlier, he had established the goal of seeing another weekend of Canadian professional football.<\/p>\n
Three more weekends were in his future. He passed away 12 hours after Saturday\u2019s Roughriders-Calgary Stampeders game concluded.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart breaks today as my best friend and love of my life and Lexi\u2019s dad had passed away earlier this morning,\u201d Cathy wrote on Facebook on Sunday afternoon, acknowledging the couple\u2019s beloved little dog.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Craig-Cathy-and-Lexi-640x800.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thankful that you greeted me with your beautiful blue eyes Friday morning and kisses.<\/p>\n
I am thankful that we got to call some people, including your dad, in spite of a province-wide cell outage and you guys got to talk one more time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thankful that you were able to watch some football on the NFL Network earlier in the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thankful that we got to spend this one more day together where we were able to tell one another we loved each other throughout the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou had previously said you would like to watch a couple more games so on Saturday I put the Colts-Bengals game on and then changed to the TSN broadcast for the CFL games. I believe you heard these games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you so much my sweetie and we will see each other again one day on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The remarkable Craig Smith is not quickly described or profiled. But one kind gesture captures the essence of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-95613","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\/95613","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=95613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}