HIGH ACHIEVERS: Ottawa Sooners in mourning over loss of Bob Foster, Shawn Payer, Alex Saunders

By Martin Cleary

A football team is more than just a group of heavily-padded athletes with a wide variety of talents trying to score or prevent points.

You’ll often hear the players and coaches refer to this huge huddle of humanity as a family. That’s because the combined camaraderie, joy, support and time spent together has united them into a football family on and off the field.

The Ottawa Sooners are the most recognizable and distinguished junior football family in the city. During their 65 years, the Sooners have celebrated national titles, struggled to stay afloat, changed leagues and involved their alumni and families in a multitude of ways.

As the 2025 Ontario Football Conference season starts Friday but not until Aug. 9 in London for the Sooners, team alumni are mourning the passing of three notable members of their junior football community.

The Sooners were saddened to learn about the deaths of former long-time equipment manager Bob Foster on May 1 at 80, past Canadian all-star offensive lineman Shawn Payer on May 9 at 51 and a former member of their board of directors and videographer Alex Saunders on May 29 at 96. Payer also was the son-in-law of Foster.

~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~

Bob Foster, who appeared crusty on the outside but was kind-hearted on the inside, always kept himself active. There was no time for sitting around, when there was so much to do, whether it was cutting neighbourhood lawns, opening his garage door, which resembled a hardware store, to help someone or taking a keen interest in his family’s activities.

When Wayne Foster, who was Bob’s oldest child, decided to play football, Bob tagged along to volunteer and help the team in a behind-the-scenes manner.

He started with the Minto Colts minor football organization in 1982 and took care of the equipment for the mosquito, tyke and bantam teams as well as for the Ottawa Trojans midget squad. He took great pride in his work and also helped to build an equipment storage unit at Gil O. Julien Park.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Foster joined the Sooners and made sure the players had the most reliable and best-looking equipment on the field. He believed a team that looked good would also play well.

“Dad was the type of person who liked to keep busy,” Wayne said in a phone interview this week. “He was the type of guy who got involved in his kids’ interests. I was football and he backed me up and was there to watch me play.

“When he committed to something, he did the best he could and made everything his way. He liked to have control of something … whether it was refinishing helmets or building a locker room. He was committed. He was very determined.”

Foster enjoyed a good cigar and you could read his mood just by watching how he moved the tobacco product in his mouth.

Some of Bob’s best work was inside the Sooners’ clubhouse in Brewer Park. The clubhouse was torn down several years ago.

Using the Sooners’ colours of orange, black and white, Foster painted the inside of the locker room to bring it to life. He also hung framed team photos on the walls to keep the club’s history alive.

He had good connections with city employees, when it came time to paint.

“He was conscientious,” said Mike Sheedy, a former Sooner who had assignments as team equipment manager, manager and general manager before serving as president from 1991-97.

“The city didn’t want to paint it (locker room). We painted it ourselves. Bob didn’t want to waste anything and that dressing room didn’t look that much different than the Ottawa Rough Riders’ dressing room.”

The Sooners’ colours not only were on the walls, but also on each and every player’s locker. The orange was prominent on the edges.

“When you walked into the clubhouse, it was like going into a cathedral,” said Wayne, who played one year with the Sooners.

When it came to equipment, helmets were sacred in Bob’s eyes and he let the players know it, if they showed any disrespect to their head gear.

“He had a big bark, but was the kindest person ever,” Sheedy added. “Those players had so much respect for him that if a player put something where it shouldn’t be, one of the captains would say ‘pick it up.’”

“He had the appearance of a tough exterior, but was soft inside,” Wayne added.

When Sheedy needed help one day in his job as a funeral director, Foster stepped forward to help. Sheedy often dealt with young cancer-stricken children in the Candlelighters’ program.

One mature, seven-year-old boy talked to Sheedy about his funeral arrangements and said he didn’t want flowers because he didn’t like flowers. In lieu of flowers, he wanted people to donate sports equipment for the Ottawa community.

There was an overwhelming response to his idea, but Sheedy didn’t know how to store it. Foster stepped up with a huge fishing net and they attached it to the ceiling to collect about 1,000 balls and various other sports items. The equipment was taken by truck to BGC Ottawa (Boys and Girls’ Club Ottawa).

“I couldn’t have pulled it off without Bob,” Sheedy said.

Foster, who quietly did many other acts of kindness, would make sure every decal, number or letter was perfect on a helmet before every game. If not, he would remove the damaged piece and replace it with a new one.

If a player came off the field and threw his helmet on the ground, Foster stopped the player and delivered a short talk about how to treat a helmet. If a player sat on the helmet on the sidelines, he was soon sitting on the ground, after Foster kicked the helmet from under his backside.

Foster also would spend hours shining and buffing the helmets to the point of making them looking brand new for each game.

He may have been the only junior football team equipment manager who had a system to do the players’ laundry, after games and practices. He had the players put their laundry in a mess bag and attached the player’s number to it for identification.

At home, Foster had a garage filled with tools and supplies that rivalled a hardware store. That’s why his garage was known as Bob’s Hardware. Many neighbours benefited from his kindness and knowledge.

Foster, who survived skin cancer but died from a cardiac arrest, had a strong relationship with his son-in-law Shawn Payer. They spent a lot of time together and football and family were common themes. But Foster’s passing upset Payer too much and he died of a heart attack in his father-in-law’s home eight days later.

Polite and quiet, Payer was considered “a gentle giant” by his family and friends, “a big teddy bear” by his wife Cindy.

“He was a gentle giant, kind, good to my sister and a kind-hearted person,” Wayne explained. “He would notice someone and start to talk to them to see if they needed help. He was a quiet, gentle man.

“But on the football field, he was a beast.”

During his years with the Sooners, he was named an All-Canadian offensive lineman on three occasions. He was a team captain and helped the Sooners win the Canadian junior football championship in 1992 under head coach Greg Marshall, which was the fourth and last time Ottawa won that title.

Alex Saunders played many important roles in Ottawa football. He was a co-founder and coach in the Myers Riders minor football program, head coach of the Sir Robert Borden High School senior team and an offensive line coach and general manager with the semi-pro Ottawa Bootleggers team. He also was involved as a coach for several years with the AIA Senior Bowl for the top high school players.

For eight years, Saunders sat on the board of the directors for the Sooners. The Ottawa Rough Riders rookie of the year in 1949, he also was the Sooners’ videographer.