The Passing of Mark "Kos" Kosmos

News comes that Mark Kosmos has died. A review of this fellow's CFL career might warrant a posthumous entry into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. He was captain of the Grey Cup Champions in 1976 and had the noteworthy accomplishment of winning four national championships with three different teams. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!

Pete. RIP Mark Kosmos.
Born 1945...ditto.
I had just moved from the Big Smoke to the capital the year he retired. Then I slowly became a Rider fan, aka Renegade, RB fan...
But not on the day Bobby Simpson pulled the ole sleeper play (:
Most CFL fans will know nothing about the Ottawa Bootleggers, who played 4-down ball in a US semi pro league, when we had no CFL. If I am not mistaken they ran the gauntlet all the way to the championship game (won?)
Canucks beating Yanks; of course that is prejudiced impossible. Just give good athletes a chance.

Well the CFL gave Mark a chance, along with hundreds of others.
Mark Kosmos was a GOOD ONE.
God bless his family, he will be missed.

1 Like

Dear Mr. Shatto:

Thank you for your note.

The Ottawa Bootleggers were well known in Ottawa at beginning of the nineteen nineties. There was a large consensus that the team was better than the professional Rough Riders at the time. The Bootleggers were coached by Greg Marshall - the down lineman not the running back - and quarterbacked by the elegant Rodney Moors. Marcel Bellefeuille played for that team. The Bootleggers won the championship in the Empire Football League as the only Canadian entry.

Mark Kosmos was outspoken. A good example of his character exists on the 2002 CFL Traditions series of videos wherein he and others are interviewed about the 76 game. Somewhere Tom Clements is captured saying that after he fumbled the ball on the Regina one yard line with two minutes to go he knew by the look in the defence's - read Mark Kosmos' - eyes that Ottawa offence was going to get one more crack.

In his exceptional book Double Trouble (1978) Tony Gabriel dedicates a chapter to "A Personal Flashback on the 1977 Season". This is an extraordinarily candid and intimate perspective and includes numerous references to Mark Kosmos. Among these is the comment that it was strange to be practising without Kos leading the drills after Kosmos left the Riders early in the year.

Number fifty and a middle linebacker.

Reminds me of someone we know.

Peter Boyle.

1 Like

YouTube has entire 76 GC broadcast. Locker room celebration Kosmos tries to smoke a broken, wet cigar during interview.
Owner Mark Loeb joins him in interview. Whitman mentions Kosmos contract is coming due. Loeb hems and haws.
Like 1972 for HAM the 76 win for OTT was high tide for franchise. Nothing would ever be the same.