Why losing out on the job as Ottawa Redblacks president crushed Henry Burris

Needing someone to guide their ride back to respectability, the Ottawa Redblacks turned to a former Boatman.

They chose ex-Toronto Argonaut/Hamilton Tiger-Cat receiver Mike Morreale to be their new president when Henry Burris — the only quarterback to win a Grey Cup for Ottawa in 50 years and the most popular player in Redblacks history — not only craved the job but expected to get it.

“Oh, I wanted it badly,” Burris, who now lives in Tallahassee, Fla., said Wednesday from Vancouver, where he’ll be speaking about “resilience” to a financial group. “We (he and Redbacks CEO Mark Goudie) spoke about six times, and I wanted it bad. I was prepared. I worked my butt off to do my research. I called people around the league, just to get views of the organization and the team and things that have been done to change things. Not only from the product on the field, but also the overall eye test and their thoughts, the red flags, what needs to change, what’s changed since I was there, and so on.

“But yeah, I wanted it badly, because the worst thing for me is to see that team in that state, to see that fan base have to deal with that. Things happen sometimes, and what goes up must come down. But for me, that team means everything, especially what we were able to produce in such a short time frame. And then, of course, my family, my kids, you know, we watch every game that we can when the Redblacks are on. It meant everything. We always said at one point we wanted to get back to Ottawa, and there was our opportunity.”

Burris, 51, had an 18-year career in the CFL that started in Calgary and ended with three seasons in Ottawa, where he was the Redblacks’ Day 1 QB and rather miraculously led them to a Cup victory in 2016.

Since his retirement, he has worked on TV in Ottawa, had various assistant coaching jobs in the NFL, held quarterback camps, and currently calls college football games on ESPN while co-hosting an NFL talk show on SiriusXM.

He has also been closely watching the development of his football-playing sons, who are forging gridiron futures for themselves at the college and high school level.

“It’s disappointing,” he said of losing out on the president’s job, “but hey, I love Mike. He’s a great guy. He’s always been my guy. He taught me a lot about the CFL. I’m excited for him. I think he’s a great choice. But I know the backbone of the city. I know it inside and out, from the corporate side to the fan engagement. Those are things I’m up to date on. Look at all the connections I have in that city. But it is what it is. They had criteria they wanted to adhere to, and that decision was made. But it’s just disappointing, especially with all that we’ve been through and what we’ve created, and I felt I played a pretty important role in helping generate that.

“I expressed my disappointment. I definitely did. But it was in the moment, and I didn’t want to say something that I didn’t need to say. I’m a competitor, and when you’re expecting something, and you get the word … my heart sank. My heart just dropped to the floor because I thought, with the way things were going, that this was all going to work out. It was unfortunate that it didn’t. When you get the final word, and it’s not your name, especially with the relationships that you had, it hurts. It definitely hurts.”

Morealle, 55, began his Canadian Football League playing career with the Argos in 1995, and had two tours with both the Boatmen and Tiger-Cats before retiring in 2006.

Upon hanging up his cleats, the native of Hamilton worked for the CFL Players’ Association for seven years, serving as the union’s president from 2012-14, then took on the role as commissioner of the Canadian Elite Basketball League for eight seasons before departing in 2025.

At the news conference to formerly announce Morreale’s appointment on Wednesday, Goudie confirmed that Burris was one of three finalists for the job.

It’s believed the other was Greg Dick, who was the CFL’s chief financial officer and head of Grey Cup and Events until he was promoted to become the league’s deputy commissioner last week.

“What I wanted to do is to understand what criteria I should be using to hire the next president,” said Goudie. “One of the first people I reached out to to kind of educate myself was Henry, and I asked him to help me think through and replay the last couple of years of what’s happened with Redblacks, and some of the challenges we faced and why we’re where we are. So, yeah, Henry was interested in the job, and we spent a bunch of conversations talking kind of through that. But before we got to that, Henry was helping me think through football and talk about the importance of reconnecting with the community and all that stuff in Ottawa.

“I think I probably talked to 20-something people before I started the interview process. The interview process. The candidates I had were in the low 20s. Spoke to probably a dozen or so, narrowed it down to three, and Henry was in that group. I don’t want to get into too many personal conversations I’d had with Henry, but he was a very strong candidate.

“The conversation I had with him this week was that we’d love to find a way … and I think Mike shares this with me … to find a way to figure out how to bring Hank home and have him as part of the Redblacks. What that looks like, what that means, we’ll figure out down the road. But he is Mr. Redblack, and so we’re happy to continue that dialog with Henry down the road.”

Goudie said he was looking for somebody who could balance the administrative duties with bringing lost fans back to the stadium.

First and foremost, he said, was fixing the football team, which snapped a 22-game losing streak with last Friday’s victory over the Argos.

“It’s the most important part,” said Goudie. “Without that, nothing else really matters. Getting the football right is important.

“All of the people that I talked to that knew Mike, many of them unsolicitedly reaching out to me to sing his praises, and those that had worked with him talked about his acumen. Football guys that have played with him, the leadership qualities he brought when he played, when he was with the PA, the trust that he had in executives of other teams and the players that counted on him. So, the football was primary in terms of what I wanted to be able to bring to this organization.

“Maybe not equally as important, but very important, was the business side of things, and I love the fact that Mike ran a chain of restaurants once upon a time, and has the scars that you only get from being in business. That’s a tough business to be in. Starting the CEBL from scratch is a monumental task, and if you talk to people that follow the CEBL or are fans of the CEBL, it punched above its weight. So I’m looking forward to Mike rolling up his sleeves and going to work on the football club, and getting back to where we need to be, and that’ll be the majority of his time for some period of time. And when that’s happening, a lot of his time will be spent on the business side of it, reconnecting with our community, with ‘R’ Nation, getting back to sold-out stadiums here that we had for a couple of years, bringing that swagger back to ‘R’ Nation and to Ottawa football.”

Flanked by Goudie and Redblacks co-owner Roger Greenberg, Morreales said he was excited to return to the CFL, as it’s “a very important part of who I am.

“So to come back, and to come to the nation’s capital as a proud Canadian, to be able to lead this organization and this fan base … to see what the fans have endured and to see them still coming out, I got a lot of really good appreciation for that,” he said. “This is a great ownership group that has invested quite a bit and continues to invest not only in the team but in this precinct, which is the best in the country, and it just aligns for me.

“There’s a lot of great changes on the horizon. Certainly, we’re not happy, and I’m not happy with the state of the team. And it’s not a one-year problem; it’s a multi-year problem. But we’re not going to look back. We’re going to look forward, and we’re going to make changes that are beneficial to the club, to the organization, to the community, to the fan base. And I couldn’t be more excited to put down some roots here and become part of the fabric of this community. Be able to go out and listen more than speak, although I do like to speak, and to be able to help turn things around with the right people, make the right decisions.

“And if we’re going to lose, we’re going to lose because of what I did, the decisions I made. If we’re going to win, we’re going to win because of the people I brought in. That’s how it’s going to work.”

Morreale spoke highly of GM/head coach Ryan Dinwiddie, but wouldn’t confirm he’d be back next season.

“Everybody is up to be reviewed,” he said. “Ryan knows that. And it’s no shock. We’re in a performance-based industry, so I can give everybody the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not going to cast my opinions without actually having time to get to know people as people and to evaluate them properly.”

Morreale also said he reached out to Burris since his hiring.

“Obviously, I understand the pain that comes from really wanting something bad and then just not seeing it through,” said Morreale. “I can tell you, I have a lot of respect for Henry. We’ve got a great relationship that goes way back. There’s a role for Henry Burris in this organization. The Redblacks are not the Redblacks without Henry Burris, so that’s up to Henry now. We’ll continue to talk and have those discussions, and I hope that he’s open to it. The door won’t close on Henry Burris; it just won’t happen. You build teams and franchises around individuals like that. So I don’t expect that discussion to stop.”

Would Burris keep the door open to returning to the Redblacks?

“I’m always going to hear what they have to say because I always care about the health of the organization and the team because it is special to me,” he said. “The city is still special to me. I’m definitely going to listen to what they have to say. But it has to align with my family and what we’re trying to achieve. I understand the value that I bring to the table, and that value has to be met because, as much as I love both my family and the Redblacks, I go to bed with one at night and the other one I don’t.

“I think that’s the big thing, because coming back to Ottawa, it’s going to space the family out. So I’ve got to make sure that as much as I’m putting in, I’m getting out of it, and it keeps the family happy. Because for me, the joy is just being back, affiliated, being back in a city that we know, we love, with friends on both ends, business-wise, and just in life, and just getting back to where we wanted to be.”