Just recently the Canadian Football Hall of Fame announced their latest player inductees. Clyde Brock was among one of the amazing players that made the cut. Clyde must have been one of the greatest offensive linemen of all time because he wasn’t playing a skilled position and still made list, yet most times it is the skilled positions that we tend to remember as one of the greats. Therefore, Clyde was excellent at his position, but this is not a blog entry on Clyde Brock this is a blog entry on Henry Burris.
Before I get into Burris’s Hall of Fame resume, let’s take a look at Burris's CFL application. Henry is from a small town in Oklahoma USA called Spiro. Henry was born in 1975 and went to play his college ball for Temple University in Division 1 NCAA. Burris’s stats from his college days look like so: 558 completions, 7945 yards in passing with only 45 interceptions. These stats are impressive yes however Burris never won any major college awards mind you. Burris then would go undrafted in the NFL but kept his dream alive of playing professionally as in the year 1997 Burris signed with CFLs very own, Calgary Stampeders. He would retire as an Ottawa RedBlack at the age of 41. During his 18-year professional football playing career, Burris competed in 5 Grey Cup games, winning 3 of the 5. He got Grey Cup MVP twice and Most Outstanding player award twice. His stats were undeniably great. Overall Burris would go down with over 63,630 passing yards, ranked within the top 3 QBs in Canadian Football all-time list. Among those 63 thousand plus passing yards Burris threw over 370 passing touchdowns. Incredible! Burris is now sitting next to Hall of Famer Matt Dunigan on the panel for TSN, as a CFL analyst. What’s even more exciting is Burris got the call to help coach the Chicago Bears, for the length of training camp in the NFL. Congratulations Smiley Hank. Best of luck in the future!