Born July 28, 1936
Class of 1973 – Career Highlights
Grey Cup Champion 1960, 1968, 1969
CFL All-Star – 1966, 1968, 1969
Jeff Russell Memorial Trophy – 1958, 1969
Most Outstanding Canadian – 1959, 1963, 1966, 1969
CFL MOP – 1963, 1966, 1969
Grey Cup MVP – 1969
Lou Marsh Trophy – 1969
Lionel Conacher Trophy 1969
Order of Canada – 1970
Canadian Sports Hall of Fame – 1975
In the Annals of Canadian Football, Russ Jackson has set the unattainable standard for Canadian-born Quarterbacks since his career ended after the 1969 season. He earned the highest ranking (8th) of any Canadian-born player in history when the CFL released their list of the top 50 players in league history.
His career statistical totals ranked him among the top five quarterbacks in history in each major category for all quarterbacks in the history of the game at the time of his retirement.
He completed 1356 of 2530 pass attempts (53.6%) for a total of 24592 yards.
He threw 185 touchdown passes while tossing only 125 interceptions. All of these numbers added up to an impressive 91.0 passer rating for his great career. When he ran with the ball, he highly another impressive skill set as he covered 5045 yards on 738 carries (6.8 yard average) and scored 54 touchdowns. He was a model of consistency and a great team leader who led his Ottawa team to the playoffs in every season of his 12 year career.
He was a leader in the world of academics as he was a principal of a number of different schools after his professional football career.As a fitting tribute to his playing career and his contribution to academics, the CIS and its 26 member university teams decided in 1986 to create the Russ Jackson Award which is presented to the CIS player ‘who exhibits athletic ability, academic achievement and
devoted citizenship’.