Beaver Sports
Napanee’s Leroy Blugh will be returning to the sidelines this summer, joining the Queen’s Golden Gaels football team as a defensive line coach for the 2022 season.
Taking the role with the Gaels is a homecoming of sorts for the 56-year-old Blugh, who played football at NDSS before going on to a 15-year hall-of-fame career in the Canadian Football League with stops in Edmonton and Toronto. When he retired from playing in 2003 he stepped into coaching which included serving on the Gaels staff in 2011-12 before returning to the CFL, coaching one year with Edmonton before spending six with the Ottawa RedBlacks. He was a member of the coaching staff when they hoisted the Grey Cup in 2016 to match the one he won in 1993 as a player. After taking last year off from coaching, he returns to the coaching ranks with Queen’s.
“I always loved Napanee, and it’s always great to be home,” Blugh said in a release posted to the Gaels’ team website. “I grew up here and so you know, lived in different places in Canada but Napanee is always home so I’m very happy to be here. And to be able to go to Queen’s makes it that much better.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Queen’s and working with the football team,” he added. “What I liked about Queen’s was being at home and being able to coach football, and of course, being able to work with young athletes. And help us win, of course.”
Queens will open their OUA season Aug. 27 against the Toronto Varsity Blues.
In 2015 Blugh was inducted to Greater Napanee’s hall of fame, complete with a permanent display case at the Strathcona Paper Centre.