EDMONTON – Former Grey Cup champion EE head coach Ray Jauch will forever be enshrined in Canadian Football League history.
The former EE head coach was formally announced as a member of the 2024 Canadian Football Hall of Fame class on Friday.
Jauch began his football journey as a star running back for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, winning the Rose Bowl and a National Championship in 1958. He would be drafted in the first round of the American Football League Draft to the Buffalo Bills, but would instead choose to play in Canada with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. A torn Achilles in the 1949 Grey Cup put an end to Jauch’s playing career and he would transition into coaching.
His first pro-coaching job was with the Edmonton Eskimos, joining the club as the team’s running backs coach in 1966. By 1970, Jauch would be promoted to the head coach’s role where he would turn the Green and Gold’s fortunes around. The Eskimos finished the season with a 9-7 record — four wins better than the prior campaign — which garnered the Annis Stukus Trophy for Jauch as the CFL’s coach of the year.
The Eskimos would win the 1975 Grey Cup under the guidance of Jauch, finishing the regular season with a 12-4 record before defeating the Montreal Alouettes by a 9-8 score in the championship game. In all, Jauch helmed the Eskimos from 1970 to 1976, and is the third winningest coach in club history with a 65-43-4 record.
After his time in Edmonton, Jauch went on to hold assistant and head coaching roles with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 1978-82 and the Saskatchewan Roughriders from 1991-1995, before finishing his CFL career as an offensive consultant with Toronto in 1999.
Over 14 seasons as a head coach, Jauch amassed 127 regular season victories – ranking sixth all-time in league history – and was a two time coach of the year.