Richie Hall (born October 4, 1960) is a defensive assistant coach for the

Winnipeg Blue Bombers The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West Division (CFL), West division. They play thei ...

of the

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(CFL). He played professionally as a

Canadian football Canadian football, or simply football, is a Sports in Canada, sport in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete on a field long and wide, attempting to advance a Ball (gridiron football), pointed oval-shaped ball into the opposi ...

defensive back In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the ...

for nine seasons for the

Calgary Stampeders The Calgary Stampeders are a professional Canadian football team based in Calgary, Alberta. The Stampeders compete in the West Division (CFL), West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The club plays its home games at McMahon Stadium a ...

and Saskatchewan Roughriders where he was a CFL All-Star in 1983 and a four-time divisional All-Star. He is a five-time

Grey Cup The Grey Cup () is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested between the winners ...

champion, once as a player and four times as a

defensive coordinator A defensive coordinator (DC) is a coach responsible for a gridiron football team's defense. Generally, the defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator represent the second level of a team's coaching structure, wit ...

. He was formerly the

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

of the Edmonton Eskimos from 2009 to 2010.

Early years

Hall was born October 4, 1960, in

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, Texas. He was in a car accident as a child that catapulted him through the windshield of the car and nearly killed him, leaving him with permanent scars above his right eye. He was a star two-way

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

player in high school despite his height of just .

College career

Hall was a walk on

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

player at

Colorado State University Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado, United States. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University Syst ...

, where he majored in social work. He played for the

Rams In engineering, reliability, availability, maintainability and safety (RAMS)Calgary Stampeders The Calgary Stampeders are a professional Canadian football team based in Calgary, Alberta. The Stampeders compete in the West Division (CFL), West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The club plays its home games at McMahon Stadium a ...

in May 1983 and, in his rookie season, was a CFL All-Star

, playing in 16 games recording four

interception In Ball game, ball-playing Competitive sport, competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for ...

s and two

fumble A fumble in gridiron football occurs when a player who has possession and control of the ball loses it before being downed (tackled), scoring, or going out of bounds. By rule, it is any act other than passing, kicking, punting, or successful h ...

recoveries. He also returned 50 punts on special teams for 561 yards including one

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Scoring a touchdown grants the team that scored it 6 points. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchd ...

and one kickoff return for 12 yards. He earned West Division All-Star honours in the 1986 CFL season for his defensive work recording four sacks, eight interceptions for 116 yards, and one fumble recovery for 50 yards. He also returned 16 punts that year for 260 yards.

Saskatchewan Roughriders

Hall was traded to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in May 1988 for a fourth-round pick in the 1989 CFL Draft and returned as a 1988 CFL season and 1990 CFL season West Division All-Star. He won his first

championship in

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

. In all, he appeared in 153 career regular-season games between 1983 and 1991 playing both defensive back and

punt returner A return specialist or kick returner is a player on the special teams unit of a gridiron football team who specializes in returning punt (gridiron football), punts and kickoff (gridiron football), kickoffs. There are few players who are exclusivel ...

, was a four-time West Division all-star, a League All-Star in 1983, and was selected for the Tom Pate Memorial Award in 1990. After being released by the Roughriders, Hall used his social work degree and got a job at Regina's Cornwall Alternative School for high-risk kids and joined Regina's Archbishop M.C. O'Neill High School football coaching staff in 1993 before embarking on his professional coaching career.

Coaching career

Saskatchewan Roughriders

In 1994, Hall was hired by the Saskatchewan Roughriders to coach their

field and worked his way up to

by 2000. He gained a reputation as one of the top minds for defensive schemes in the CFL and served as Saskatchewan's defensive coordinator for eight years including the 95th Grey Cup victory for Saskatchewan in 2007. His 2008 Saskatchewan Roughriders defence finished the season with the best in fewest yards allowed (354 per game), second in pass defence (266 yards per game) and fewest passing TDs allowed (28) and third in fewest TDs (44) and points allowed (25.1 per game).

Edmonton Eskimos

Hall interviewed for at least seven head coaching positions beginning after the 2004 CFL season and, on December 17, 2008, Hall was hired as the head coach for the Edmonton Eskimos, the first

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head coach in the Edmonton Eskimos history. When looking for a new coach, Eskimos General Manager Danny Maciocia said he asked his quarterbacks to name the toughest defensive co-ordinator they've played against and was given the unanimous response of Richie Hall. Hall has said that he wants his players to enjoy the game, work hard, appreciate everything, and take nothing for granted. "I want our players to have a selfless attitude. I want them to be there for each other," Hall said. "I like to think football is a way for them to live their lives." Richie Hall Grey Cup Parade

During his first training camp as

, arguably the most competitive battle was between Tumbo Abanikanda and Mark Restelli for the starting weakside linebacker spot. Hall stated that he hoped the battle would end when,"one player outperforms the other player". Eventually, Abanikanda was released with Restelli winning the job. On November 12, 2010, Hall was fired as the Eskimos head coach after two seasons coaching the team.

Saskatchewan Roughriders (II)

On February 1, 2011, it was announced that Hall had rejoined the Roughriders as their defensive coordinator. He won his third Grey Cup following the team's victory in the 101st Grey Cup in 2013.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Hall was hired as the defensive coordinator for the

on January 20, 2015. After missing the playoffs in 2015, the Blue Bombers made the playoffs for each season that Hall served as defensive coordinator, and played in four consecutive Grey Cups, including two championship victories in

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

and

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

. On January 8, 2024, it was announced that Jordan Younger had been promoted to defensive coordinator, but that Hall would remain on the defensive coaching staff.

Early years

College career

Saskatchewan Roughriders

Coaching career

Saskatchewan Roughriders

Edmonton Eskimos

Saskatchewan Roughriders (II)

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

CFL coaching record

References

Further reading