Graham Kelly
Bell Memorial - Inducted 2016
Graham Kelly wrote a weekly column about the Canadian Football League for the Medicine Hat News, starting in 1972. His analysis and insight during the football season spanned almost five decades. He attended and covered 40 Grey Cup games for the newspaper and was a fixture among the press corps at Calgary Stampeders home games for more than 42 years. Graham Kelly became one of the CFL’s foremost experts on Grey Cup history and one of its most prolific historians. He wrote seven books: four on the subject of the Grey Cup, along with books about the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the Edmonton Eskimos, and the Calgary Stampeders.
Graham's interest in football started at a young age. Born in Saskatchewan, Graham worked for the Saskatchewan Roughriders as a teenager, from 1956-1957. From 1963 to 1968, he covered the Roughriders for United Press International. In 1966 at the University of Regina, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in History. His interest in history helped feed his passion for writing about the CFL, an endeavour that would grow after he moved to Medicine Hat, Alberta in 1968. A school teacher and administrator by trade, he retired from the school district in 1998. Graham continued to write and cover football for the media. Graham was also a City Councillor for thirty years and played a key role in the development of football and sports facilities in the community.
Graham was chosen many times to vote on the CFL’s Outstanding Player Awards. He was one of 100 writers chosen by TSN to select the Top-100 Players of All Time in Canadian Football. The list was released in 2006.
Graham's published works include: Grey Cup: A History (1999); Green Grit: The Story of the Saskatchewan Roughriders (2001); Grey Cup Glory, The Edmonton Eskimos' Championship Season (2003); Greatest Grey Cups (2004); Go Stamps Go, The Story of the Calgary Stampeders (2010); Saskatchewan Roughriders, The Players, The History & The Fans (2012), and Grey Cup 100 (2012).
Graham Kelly was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame reporters division in 2002. He received the Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
After Induction
Graham Kelly was inducted into the Medicine Hat Sports Wall of Fame September 14, 2016.
Timeline:
2016 - Medicine Hat Sports Wall of Fame - September 14, 2016
