In 1988, history was made in Ottawa: Jo-Anne Polak was named the General Manager of the Ottawa Rough Riders, becoming the first female executive in CFL history, and the first General Manager of a professional sports team in North America.
When Polak took over, it wasn’t exactly the most stable time in the CFL’s long history. The league lost its television contract, the Montreal Alouettes had just folded, and the Rough Riders themselves were in dire straights financially.
Originally, she thought she was being pranked, not taking the offer seriously.
“It was like the day before the Grey Cup, and they offered me the job,” Polak said. “I thought they were joking. I kind of laughed, and I went back to my table and told the people there, and we were laughing so hard because we thought it was really funny. We didn’t think it was serious.”
Later that same night, the Rough Riders’ ownership informed Polak that they were, in fact, serious about their offer.
“They basically said, if you could do all of these other things, we think that you could probably pull this off,” Polak said.
Of course, it was immediately a giant news story, both because of Polak’s gender, and because she had never held a role like this in football before.
“Women didn’t have big jobs at all at that time,” Polak said. “Women were treated very differently back then. Women were definitely second-class citizens, some might say third-class citizens. Women reporters weren’t allowed in the locker room. Some thought this was the most ridiculous thing a team could do. I couldn’t possibly have this job, I never played football, and I didn’t coach, therefore, I can’t have this job.”
She recalls one particular story in which a coach the Rough Riders were planning to hire said, “He would never work for a broad.” Polak added that’s how it was acceptable to talk at the time.
However, for every negative comment, she says there were hundreds of encouraging ones, particularly from regular Ottawa football fans.
“There were so many people in my corner, right from day one, and one of them was the Ottawa football fans,” she said. “They embraced me immediately, and they had my back. They were like, ‘Okay, she’s a woman, but she’s ours.’ That’s very typical of the Ottawa football fans, and many of those people who had my back then are in the stands still today, and I see them every game.”
Outside of the market, it was the same story. Some were threatened by her presence, others embraced it, but as time went on, Polak noticed some big shifts happening in the sporting landscape.
“You could see generational change happening right before your eyes,” Polak remembered. “There were a lot of bad things that happened to me, but I never focused on that. There were people in the league who were in their 60s and 70s who wanted nothing to do with me or this, you could see it, but you could see it change over the course of the generations.”
“There were guys in their 40s who thought, ‘Yeah, this is cool. I’ve got daughters who could do this.’ You could see the different attitudes throughout the generation. I focused completely on the good stuff that was happening, never on the bad stuff that was happening.”
Polak’s career began with the Progressive Conservatives, while working with a couple of Members of Parliament. Her smarts originated from outside of football, but that’s what the Rough Riders needed at that time: someone who could help them survive financially.
After she was hired, Polak made efforts to learn more about the sport, truly diving into the football side, as well. She would pick a position group each week, and watch them during practice, and when the game came around that week, she’d continue to watch them closely.
Still, she was advised never to answer a football question directly to the media. She was warned that they would look for any reason to tear her down. So many people believed women couldn’t possibly be as literate as men when it came to sports.
Partly thanks to trailblazers like Polak, the world has changed, and now, not only are women pushing into bigger roles across the sporting landscape, but there are professional leagues, including the PWHL and NSL which both have teams at TD Place, where women are the stars.
“It’s amazing,” Polak said. “I remember two years ago going to a woman’s tackle football national championship here in Ottawa, and I was just weak at the knees. I was just so excited about it because back then, there weren’t women in anything. Even women’s soccer wasn’t even a thing. Back then, women just didn’t participate in sports at all. While there may not be a woman General Manager right now, the entire sport of football and many others are so full of women who are actively participating and actively leading. It’s really something.”
Alongside her husband Don Campbell, Polak will be inducted into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame in May, becoming the first wife and husband combo to be inducted at the same time.
For that, Polak is beyond thankful to the people of Ottawa for all the support over the years, and the continued friendship at REDBLACKS games to this day.
“I don’t know that I would have got this job in any other city than Ottawa,” she said. “The City of Ottawa, that the owners in Ottawa, and football fans in Ottawa were the ones who were brave enough to go, ‘Okay, we’re going to do something very different.’ It completely went against everything that society knew, but that city and that sports community made this happen.”
“It’s a full circle moment with the people who showed a huge leap of faith back in 1988.”
