Ben Zambiasi, Tiger-Cat great, has been busy since he retired from football in 1988. He has imported and exported cars, sold cleaning supplies, and owned both a juice-bar and a cookie company. You could say he’s changed with the times, from a hard-nosed linebacker to an eclectic businessman and staunch vegetarian. Hamilton too has changed since Zambiasi’s playing days, from a blue-collar steeltown to a cultural hotbed. The player and the city have evolved since the 1980s, but rooted deeply in the hearts of both remains a love of hard-hitting, defensive-minded football.
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are built on a defensive legacy like no other team in the CFL. It’s a legacy built on the backs of Ticats’ talent. Names like Mosca, Covington, and Zambiasi have been hammered into Hamilton lore. The crowd responds as deliriously for stout defensive plays as it does for 40-yard downfield bombs. It’s a rare market in an offense-first league, and it’s one that Defensive Coordinator Jeff Reinebold appreciates.
Much of the talk surrounding the Ticats going into the 2017 season concerns Reinebold’s defense, and most of the adjectives are positive. After a 2016 campaign in which a battered secondary left a little to be desired, fans eagerly await a return to defensive form in Hamilton.
After weeks of training camp and a road preseason contest, Reinebold’s crew has displayed its mixture of veteran studs and fresh talent. During the first preseason game in Ottawa, numerous defensive players took strides toward earning their spot on a competitive roster. In 2017 the team looks cohesive on the defensive side of the ball, but on many occasions throughout Ticats history the preseason road proved a little rockier.
Zambiasi is widely considered an all-time Tiger-Cat great. Next to big Ang Mosca, there are few players that have left a legacy with the organization as strong as Zambiasi’s. He was an eight time all-star in 11 seasons with the team, but in 1982, the linebacker’s career in Hamilton was in danger of being cut short.
Flooded with lucrative offers from NFL squads and trapped in a contract with three years remaining, Zambiasi pulled a gutsy negotiating technique. In the first week of preseason, he abruptly retired.
His bold strategy had promise, as the Ticats were reeling with recent departures. Following the 1981 season the Cats suffered the loss of their GM, entire coaching staff, a starting receiver, and the starting running back. Without Zambiasi’s presence, the team would have been riddled with holes. Strangely enough however, in the early 1980s, retirement was a bona fide negotiation tactic.
In the same season, Ottawa Rough Riders Quarterback J.C. Watts turned down the richest contract in Bytown history, eschewing $500,000 a year for five years plus bonuses. The technique J.C. Watts adopted was simple: threaten legal action to nullify his existing contract using retirement as incentive. Watts was advised by John Agro, the very same lawyer in Zambiasi’s corner.
“My lawyer was upset. I was upset,” said Zambiasi in 1982, after he and his lawyer confronted then-GM Joe Zuger.
Afterwards, Zuger discussed the confrontation, saying “he [Zambiasi] just came in, just handed me his retirement form, sent one to the league office, and said he was retiring.”
What’s the modern day equivalent of this debacle? It would be pretty close if perennial all-star Simoni Lawrence retired this preseason in order to force Hamilton management to restructure his contract.
In 2017, Zambiasi remembers the events clearly. “Harold [Ballard] was really the guy I ended up negotiating with. I didn’t negotiate a dollar amount. What I did get to negotiate was how the money would be distributed to me, so I never got an increase in salary. I honoured the contract, and they [the Tiger-Cats] honoured the renegotiation of the structure,” he recounts.
Zambiasi would return to Tiger-Cats training camp before the start of the 1982 season.
After Zambiasi played out the remaining three years of his retooled contract with the Tiger-Cats, he decided to stay on in Hamilton, signing a succession of one year deals until his eventual departure after the 1987 season. There were a number of reasons why he chose to re-sign with the Ticats, despite NFL interest.
Zambiasi speaks highly of the city’s defensive legacy, citing conversations with his father, a rowdy fanbase, and his love of three down football as reasons to remain in Hamilton.
“For me to get cut by the Chicago Bears in 1978 and come to this town it was just like destiny. I went from an all-time low in my life to an all-time high like 10 days later,” remembers Zambiasi fondly.
Zambiasi would go on to play Tiger-Cat brand football for the better part of a decade, including a Grey Cup victory in 1986.
To what does Zambiasi attribute the defensive culture surrounding the Tiger-Cats?
“It’s a rough and tough town, and they want to see physical football. They’d rather see you beat up a team and lose by a point than get blown out. All the teams that have won here traditionally are defensive teams,” says Zambiasi.
Perhaps Jeff Reinebold’s defense can help Zambiasi’s words ring true, and bring a hard-fought Grey Cup home to a championship starved city.
The defensive culture is a major reason that Zambiasi concludes, “I couldn’t have come to a better place in the CFL than Hamilton.”
