Gerry Organ was born in 1944 in Cheltenham, England. He emigrated with his parents and four siblings to Canada when he was 12 years old, as his father had taken a job working on the legendary Avro Arrow.

The family settled on Swordbill Drive in Etobicoke and Gerry attended Scarlett Heights Collegiate. He left school before completing grade 13 because he had been told he would never make it to university. But after four years in the working world, he decided to “prove them wrong”, and went back to Scarlett Heights to get his grade 13 diploma.

At age 21, Gerry was so much older than the other students that on the first day of school, they kept directing him to the teachers’ staff room.

Gerry worked night and day to understand things like the “new math”, and after receiving his diploma he got accepted to the University of Guelph. At U of G, Gerry studied Human Kinetics and played football “without distinction” (as he humbly describes it) for the mighty Guelph Gryphons. Despite his downplayment of his university football skills, Gerry was named to the All-Canadian team in 1969.

If he calls his university football career somewhat inauspicious, things changed once Gerry joined the Ottawa Rough Riders as a placekicker. During his illustrious CFL career, which ran from 1971-1983, Gerry became Rough Rider MVP in ’71 and ’72, a CFL All-Star in ‘73 and again in 1982, a Grey Cup Champion in ’73 and ’76, and he was presented with the CFL’s Most Outstanding Canadian Award in 1973. A year after he left the Rough Riders, Gerry had the honour of seeing his number (#71) retired on ‘Gerry Organ Day’ at Lansdowne Park!

Gerry is currently the Director of National Initiatives at One Way Ministries in Toronto. His continuing love for the game is demonstrated through his website – www.EXCFL.ca – which was created for those CFL veterans that remember the glory days, and can still see well enough to read online! He has been married to Lore for 40 years, has two married children and five grandchildren. He resides in King City.