Steve Molnar was the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ leading ground-gainer in their final home game without, well, Gainer.
On Nov. 20, 1976, he rushed for 144 yards at Taylor Field to power Saskatchewan to a 23-13 victory over the arch-rivals from Edmonton in the Western Conference final.
It was his finest day as a CFLer.
All these years later, Molnar’s excellence as a player and a person can be celebrated once more.
He is to be posthumously inducted into the SaskTel Plaza of Honour in October.
The announcement was made on Wednesday morning, when Selection Committee Chair Steve Mazurak (a former teammate of Molnar’s) also had the pleasure of introducing Darian Durant and Roy Shivers as members of the Plaza’s Class of 2024.
It all fits together quite nicely, thank you.
On April 12, 2006, Shivers — in his capacity as the Roughriders’ General Manager — consummated a history-changing trade that brought Durant and another future Grey Cup-winning quarterback, Kerry Joseph, to Saskatchewan.
Shivers selected Joseph first overall in a dispersal draft of players from the defunct Ottawa Renegades after obtaining the No. 1 pick from the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
As part of the deal, Saskatchewan exchanged negotiation-list quarterbacks with Hamilton. The Tiger-Cats received Reggie Ball in return for the rights to Durant.
Durant was the Roughriders’ third-string quarterback in 2007, when Joseph was named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player. Three days after receiving the league’s most coveted individual prize, Joseph helped Saskatchewan post a 23-19 Grey Cup victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
When the Roughriders returned to the championship game two years later, Durant was behind centre for the Green and White.
Durant’s first year as the team’s unrivalled starting quarterback was also highlighted by a first-place finish.
By capturing the divisional pennant, the Roughriders earned the right to play host to the West final for the first time since 1976, which brings us back to Steve Molnar.
In the spring of that year, he was asked to do the seemingly possible — succeed the newly retired George Reed as Saskatchewan’s fullback.
At age 29, Molnar was suddenly the Roughriders’ featured ball-career for the first time in a CFL career that had begun in 1969.
He responded by rushing for a career-best 822 yards and registering his first two 100-yard games.
Molnar reached triple digits for the second time on Sept. 19, 1976, against Edmonton. Alas, he suffered a partially torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee on the final play of that home game.
The injury forced him to miss two full games. When he returned to the lineup, he was not yet 100 per cent, so some precautions were taken.
Over the final four regular-season contests, Molnar averaged 8.5 carries per game — a notable decrease from the pre-injury figure of 14.6.
As a result, he missed out on celebrating a 1,000-yard regular season.
“We were on track for the playoffs, so they didn’t want to take a chance on my knee,” Molnar recalled when I interviewed him in 1995 for a story that appeared in the Regina Leader-Post.
“When we got to the playoffs, we smacked Edmonton good.”
Oh, did they ever.
Molnar and Molly McGee, who rushed for 100 yards, ran over and past would-be tacklers.
It was the seventh time in Roughriders history that teammates had rushed for 100-plus yards in the same game. That feat has not been accomplished since the ’76 West final.
“There were enormous holes,” Molnar recalled. “The offensive line was knocking people down left and right.
“We were all happy to go to Toronto and let the Ottawa Rough Riders’ pass in the last minute beat us.”
Nearly 19 years after that heartbreaking Grey Cup loss, Molnar could finally make light of the Tony Gabriel catch.
“It’s fun to be able to laugh about it now,” Molnar said. “I didn’t laugh about it for years.”
As a minor consolation, he did emerge from the 64th Grey Cup —won 23-20 by Ottawa — with 1,000-plus rushing yards to show for the 16 meaningful games he played in 1976.
Take Molnar’s regular-season total of 822 yards, add the 144 against Edmonton, tack on 39 from the Grey Cup, and you have … 1,005!
He followed up in 1977 by being named the Roughriders’ Most Outstanding Canadian for the second season in succession.
In the Roughriders’ first home game with Gainer the Gopher as the team mascot, Ron Lancaster hit a wide-open Molnar over the middle for a 63-yard touchdown against the B.C. Lions on July 20, 1977.
Such plays aren’t ordinarily associated with 30-year-old fullbacks, but Molnar’s scoring sprint would tie him with Mazurak for the Roughriders’ longest reception of the 1977 season.
When the Roughriders next played at Taylor Field, Molnar rushed for a career-best three TDs in a 27-17 victory over Ottawa.
One other game from 1977 stands out, even though it can be painful to recall.
Saskatchewan concluded its first non-playoff season since 1961 with a 38-0 loss in Edmonton.
“In one way, this loss could be a blessing in disguise,” Head Coach Jim Eddy told L-P legend Bob Hughes. “We will be able to identify those people who won’t lay it on the line for you. We’ve got to get rid of those guys.
“Some of those guys should have looked at Steve Molnar and Joey Walters out there today. If they’re waiting for Molnar and Walters to quit, they’ll wait forever.”
A long wait is over for everyone, like me, who enjoyed watching Steve Molnar play professional football in his home province.
“Dad always had this fierce pride in coming back full circle and playing for the Riders and what it meant to Saskatchewan as a whole to have a home-grown kid playing for the Riders,” Jeremy Molnar said on Wednesday. “We know how proud he was of that.”
And he proud he would be to be inducted.
“I know what it meant to him to play in Regina and what it meant to his family as he grew up and how they looked up to him,” said Jeremy Molnar, whose fatherpassed away on Jan. 16, 2021. “So I think he would be really quiet (in response to the news of being inducted) and he would express it in a sensitive kind of way.
“He’d be super-thrilled and excited, because it’s such an honour.”
One that is greatly appreciated by Team Molnar — his wife (Joannee), children (Allyson, Emily, Jeremy and Adam) and grandchildren (Riley, Ariana, Macauley, Madden, Abigail, Hadley and Wyatt).
We look forward to seeing them all, resplendent in No. 19 jerseys, when Molnar, Durant and Shivers are formally enshrined at halftime of a home game against B.C. on Oct. 12.
Fittingly, this year’s Legends Night will be held on the 55th anniversary of the Roughriders’ 38-21 home-field victory over Ottawa.
With the Roughriders enjoying a comfortable lead in the fourth quarter, a 22-year-old rookie running back from Saskatoon was given a turn on offence.
Steve Molnar accepted two handoffs, took off for gains of 30 and 10 yards, and called it a day.
