From 1979 to 1982 Jon Sutton was a defensive back for the Ottawa Rough Riders. Playing the out on the corner he had a knack for coming up with interceptions having 15 picks over his 41 games played for Ottawa during his 4 years. When Ottawa made its surprising run to the Grey Cup in 1981, Jon had 5 interceptions while just playing in 8 games during the regular season that year.
Jon recently visited Ottawa from his home in Inglewood California for the first time in over 40 years with a couple of his long time friends whom he first met while playing for the Ottawa Rough Riders. David Barden (Ex manager of Brandy’s in the market) and Trevor Kingsberry (Former owner of Wholesale Auto Parts warehouses) who both now reside in the states, occasionally make trips around North America together, this time to revisit the city where they first met.
The idea of this trip to Ottawa all started when Jon saw a guy in a bar wearing some REDBLACKS’ gear prior to a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game in 2024. With Jon’s history as a Rider he went over and introduced himself to this individual who turned out to be long time Ottawa football fan Brian “Buzz” Jenkins. It didn’t take long, with the two of them sharing old Rough Rider stories, to build a friendship around the CFL in Ottawa. The plan was then hatched for Jon to get himself back to Ottawa for a visit with Buzz doing some advance work to locate a few of Jon’s old Rider teammates.
On June 29th, prior to the REDBLACKS Argos game Jon and his friends got together at Joey’s with a few of Jon’s old teammates including Greg Marshall (now coaching the D-Line for Toronto), Pat Stoqua, Bruce Walker and myself. With a game to coach Greg could only stay for a few minutes but he stretched that out as much as he could to share some time with defensive teammate from decades ago. There was more than a few big bear hugs shared that day between old friends that hadn’t seen each other for over 40 years. Many stories were shared about the goings on around training camps in Peterborough, Rider games played together and so many practices facing each other on the football field at Lansdowne Park. We can only hope that we’ll all get together again some day in the not to distant future so other Riders from those years gone by can get a chance to reconnect with Jon.
Jeff Avery (proud to have been Jon Sutton’s teammate)
Top photo: Bruce Walker, Jon Sutton, Pat Stoqua
Middle photo: Greg Marshall, Jon, Jeff Avery
Bottom Photo: Jeff and Jon
