Football player.
Born at Goosecreek, Texas on 12 June 1934 to Alma Wagner (1898-1980) and John Gray (1889-1957), he played football in high school and at the University of Texas, where he was team captain and named as an All-American in 1955.
Although he was drafted by the Buffalo Colts in 1956, he chose to join the Canadian Football League instead, and went on to play for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 1956 to 1965. He left the Bombers after the 1956 season, at odds with the coach, but returned at the request of new coach, Bud Grant, and carried on his career with the Bombers.
As a member of the Bombers team, he played defensive end and offensive guard. In 10 years, Gray was a CFL All-Star as a defensive end once, and a Western conference all-star six times. In 1960, he was also the first defensive end to win the Schenley Award as the CFL's most outstanding lineman. His team won five Western Conference titles in six years (1957–1962) and four Grey Cup championship games: 1958, 1959, 1961, and 1962. His team lost the 45th Grey Cup of 1957 and the 53rd Grey Cup of 1965. He was the Blue Bombers defensive captain for nine years.
Other honours include: named in 1980 as Blue Bombers Best Defensive Player of the Half-Century; inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and the Texas Longhorns Hall of Honor in 1983, and the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 1995; chosen as defensive end to the CFL All-Time Team in 1993. He was inducted into the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Football Hall of Fame (1984) and was selected as one of twenty All-Time Blue Bomber Greats at their 75th Anniversary in 2006.
He was married three times and had two sons. In 1971, he began working for the Alamo Cement Company at San Antonio, Texas. After retiring in 1999, he enjoyed fishing at his vacation home on the Guadalupe River.
He died at Canyon Lake, Texas, in the same Goosecreek neighbourhood where he was born, on 21 January 2011 and was buried in the St. James Cemetery at Clare, Iowa.
Obituary, Dignity Memorials, 23 January 2011.
“Bombers mourn death of lineman Herb Gray,” CFL News, 24 January 2011.
“Herb Gray (Canadian Football),” Wikipedia.
Herb Gray, FamilySearch.
Herb Gray, FindAGrave.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 12 December 2025
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