Hall of fame Blue Bombers quarterback Ken Ploen dead at 88

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/02/2024 (573 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Legendary quarterback Ken Ploen, who led the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to six Grey Cup appearances — including victories in 1958, ’59, ’61 and ’62 — died Tuesday after a lengthy illness.

He was 88.

“Ken Ploen was the face of the Blue Bombers for years and then became a part of the fabric of this community following his playing days,” Winnipeg Football Club president and chief executive officer Wade Miller said in a statement. “He was a four-time Grey Cup champion as a player and a great ambassador for our franchise and our city.

“The WFC would like to extend our deepest condolences to the Ploen family and to his many friends and family in Winnipeg, as well as across Canada and the United States.”

In the final few years of Ploen’s life, the Winnipeg resident was afflicted with dementia and no longer able to recognize family members.

“At the beginning, I couldn’t talk about it, but my heart goes out to anybody who is suffering from dementia now because it’s a very, very sad thing to see your loved ones just waste away,” wife Janet Ploen told the Free Press in 2023.

Ploen, who grew up in Clinton, Iowa, and played for the Bombers from 1957 until his retirement in 1967, was a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame, Iowa Sports Hall of Fame and Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.

In 2005, he was named one of the Bombers’ 20 all-time greats. For many, Ploen remains the finest player in franchise history.

His calm under pressure was the stuff of legend.

“That was his way,” former teammate Nick Miller said in 2023. “And the big thing is he controlled the huddle. A football huddle sometimes can be a zoo. The guard is saying, ‘I can make a hole here;’ the tackle saying, ‘I can make a hole here;’ the end is saying, ‘I can beat my guy;’ and the halfback says, ‘the sweep will work.’

“But they didn’t do that with Kenny. When Kenny stepped into the huddle, only one man talked and it was Kenny. He took away all that noise and confusion.”

Ploen came to Winnipeg after earning MVP honours in the 1957 Rose Bowl, guiding the University of Iowa to a 35-19 victory over Oregon State.

During his 11 CFL seasons, he was a two-way player, so accomplished he was named a league all-star three times — twice as a quarterback and once as a defensive back (in 1959, with a then-club record 10 interceptions).

In the 1961 Grey Cup game, Ploen famously scampered 19 yards down the sideline to score the winning touchdown in overtime to beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 21-14.

Winnipeg’s legendary head coach, Bud Grant, didn’t hesitate to use Ploen in any situation.

“We used him on defence a lot because he has great athletic ability,” Grant told the Free Press in 2022, months before his death last year.

“He had great athletic instinct and he was a natural, intuitive athlete. He’d know what was going to happen a lot of times before they happened. A lot of your great football players or basketball or hockey players had the same intuition… but the thing we’re talking about here is durability. He had great durability, and he played both ways. He played both ways in a Grey Cup games.”

Ploen retired in 1967 as the Blue Bombers’ all-time leading passer, completing 1,084 passes for 16,470 yards and 119 touchdowns.

He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1975, WFC Hall of Fame in 1984 and Blue Bombers’ Ring of Honour in 2016.

“He wasn’t a rah-rah guy, that’s for sure,” Grant said. “He led by example. He was an instinctively good football player and players gravitated to him because they could see the chance to lead them to the promised land.”

After his football career ended, the Ploens settled in Winnipeg to raise a family. Love of the Manitoba outdoors was a big reason for staying.

“I can remember Ken saying he loved to hunt fish, and he said, ‘Where can you do any better than in Canada?’” Janet recalled.

“When we were getting married he said, ‘How would you like to live in Canada for two years?’ I said, ‘Where you are where is I want to be.’ And 63 years later, we’re still here.”

Ploen and Grant forged a close bond that continued after Grant left to coach the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. Both avid hunters and fishers, they reunited frequently for outdoor excursions.

“I think they’re very much alike,” Janet said of the coach and his former quarterback. “They were very, both very private people, quiet people. Very kind, would do anything for you, but yet they liked their privacy. I just think their personalities were very, very similar.”

Ploen forged close relationships with teammates, including Hal Ledyard, who arrived in Winnipeg in 1961 to compete for the starting quarterback job. Ploen made a point of inviting Ledyard and his wife, Barb, to his house — a move that baffled the newcomer.

“He says, ‘Why are you inviting me over to your house?’” recalled Janet. “‘Well, some of the fellows are coming over and we thought you and Barb would like to meet them and their wives.’ Hal says, ‘I can’t believe this, I’ve come here to take your job.’

“‘Well, maybe so but you can still come over. We can be friends.’ And you know those two were the best of friends from then on” until Ledyard’s death in 1973.

After his playing days, Ploen was a long-time sales manager at CJOB, while also serving for a time as an analyst on Blue Bombers radio broadcasts, beginning in the 1970s, with hall of fame play-by-play man Bob Irving.

“It was impossible not to like Ken,” recalled Irving, who retired in 2021. “He was as down to earth and grounded as anybody could be with the kind of athletic success he’d had.

“For me, I’m in my early to mid-20s and here’s this Blue Bomber legend and I’m sharing the same room with him on a road trip,” Irving said. “I think back to those days now and it was very humbling for me, but Kenny was the nicest guy in the world.

“He had no ego basically, never talked about himself. I quizzed him often on those great Bomber teams and all he talked about was the team, what great players they had and the great camaraderie they had.”

Chuck Liebrock, an accomplished offensive lineman for Blue Bombers from 1970-77, got to appreciate the football legend while working for the competition as sales manager at CKY-TV and later as a regional manager at CBC.

“He was very personable,” Liebrock said in 2023. “He was just one of the guys. He never, ever acted like he was anything special. He was just trying to do his job.”

Ploen’s humility and work ethic made him an excellent co-worker.

“He was a joy to work with,” said Irving. “He didn’t sort of try to take over, if I could use that term. He was a perfect analyst. I would describe the play and then he would come in with some commentary and we worked seamlessly.

”I think back on it again, and it was kind of not amazing, but it was really comfortable that we worked so well together because I was new to doing it he was very supportive and really helped me in so many ways.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca