Woody Strode’s Wild Ride

On November 27, 1948, the Calgary Stampeders defeated the Ottawa Rough Riders 12-7 to win the Grey Cup and cap off the only undefeated season in the history of the Canadian Football League. A star performer in the game, as well as throughout the season, was Woody Strode.

In Strode’s autobiography, “Goal Dust,” he describes the now mythical aftermath.

Strode at Grey Cup

I was the hero. I left the field on my teammates’ shoulders, a bottle of rye whiskey in my hand. No black athlete in the world had ever done that. I was their prized bull.

That night we partied in the Royal York Hotel, the best hotel in the city. I met an Indian friend out front, and he let me borrow his horse, a pure white multi-breed. I saddled up and walked that horse right up to the front entrance. The doorman watched me coming, frozen in his boots. My Indian friend held the door for me as I moved inside.

The lobby floor was marble cut into big squares with a black matrix. There were round marble columns that stretched fifty feet to a vaulted, cathedral-type ceiling. The night crowd was milling in tuxedos, dinner jackets and long, flowing gowns. The high-class conversation stopped when they saw me, like someone took a hammer to the alarm clock.

I walked that horse right through the crowd. I was wearing a white linen cowboy-type suit, reddish lizard-skin boots, and a navy blue silk scarf around my neck. I held the reins and my rye whiskey in my left hand, my white ten-gallon hat in my right. I walked to the center of the lobby and pulled back on the reins. I kicked that horse hard and he reared up and spun around. I leaned way back in the saddle, looked up towards the ceiling and let out a war cry. The place erupted in applause and shouting. And when the police showed up, I sliced through them like cutting a cake as I charged out of there.

The next day I was in all the newspapers. Anybody else they would have locked up. But because I was a Black American and we had just won the national championship, something Calgary had never come close to doing, I got away with it. And Tom Brooks, who owned the Stampeders and Imperial Oil—a multi-millionaire—would have paid any fine. Now I’m one of the immortal guys up there.

In truth, I can find no account of this (or anything remotely close to it) in the Calgary or Toronto newspapers. Daryl Slade, official team historian, even does a pretty thorough job debunking the incident. Still, this is a story too good not to be true, so good that the horse-in-hotel celebration soon became a Calgary Grey Cup tradition!

Therefore, we should take our cue from the famous line at the end of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” in which Woody appeared with John Wayne.