Former Roughriders president Fred Wagman dead at 86

Former Saskatchewan Roughriders president Fred Wagman has died.

(Fred Wagman/Facebook)

He was 86.

Wagman was the CFL team’s president during the 1996 and ’97 seasons. The team was in dire financial straits before Wagman helped organize a telethon to sell season tickets.

Plans for the telethon were announced in December of 1996, with Wagman famously telling reporters to “Read my lips” when he was asked to describe the depth of the team’s financial crisis.

“We were in real danger and we had reached our limits in our financial ability to borrow money and all that,” Tom Shepherd, the club’s treasurer at the time, told The Green Zone’s Jamie Nye on Wednesday.

“It was a crucial, crucial time and Fred led us through it as president as the club. Sure, lots of other people did lots of things, but a lot of it had to do with Fred’s leadership at the top.”

Shepherd said Wagman — who had been an executive with Cable Regina (now Access Communications) — was the driving force behind that season-ticket campaign, which was embraced by the team’s fans.

“A lot of that had to do with Fred leading us and setting the tone and with his connections in the business world, which also helped him,” Shepherd said. “Fred was a very strong and good leader for the club.”

The success of that campaign kept the team from folding and decades later, it’s considered by many to be the flagship franchise of the CFL.

“We are all thankful to have known Fred’s friendly demeanour alongside the endless hard work and dedication he showed as the volunteer president of our team and a member of the board,” the Roughriders said in a tweet announcing Wagman’s passing.

“And while Fred’s contributions to the Club were innumerable, he was first an ardent fan. It was a passion that never wavered even decades after he left the Roughriders’ administration.”