Tiger-Cats great Calvin Tiggle headed to Canadian Football Hall of Fame

HAMILTON — Calvin Tiggle is heading back to Hamilton.

The veteran linebacker, who helped the Hamilton Tiger-Cats capture their last Grey Cup title in 1999, was named for induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame on Thursday.

Tiggle joins receiver Brandon Banks, Canadian fullback Sean Millington and defensive lineman Charleston Hughes as members of the class of 2026. The remaining inductees will be unveiled in the coming weeks.

The Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held Sept. 17 at Hamilton Stadium, home of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

The six-foot-one, 235-pound Tiggle played eight seasons with the Toronto Argonauts (1994-95, 2000-’01) and Hamilton (1996-99).

He arrived in Canada with a bang, registering 121 defensive tackles his first CFL season, a mark that remains an Argos single-season record as well as a league standard for first-year players.

“As much as Calvin was feared by opponents, he was just as respected in the locker room,” Eric Noivo, the executive director of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, said in a statement. “His determination and dependability stood out most; teammates knew they could count on him to make a game-changing play and fans loved him for it.”

Tiggle learned of his Hall of Fame nod via defensive lineman Joe Montford, who was a teammate of Tiggle’s in Hamilton. Montford, who earned 26 sacks with the Ticats in ’99 — a half-sack short of James Parker’s league record — was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2011.

But piling up tackles was nothing new for Tiggle, who helped Georgia Tech win a share of the undisputed NCAA title in 1990. Over his CFL tenure, Tiggle accumulated 662 career tackles to rank 13th all-time, along with 10 sacks, 18 special-teams tackles, nine interceptions and nine fumble recoveries in 127 regular-season games.

He twice led the CFL in tackles and registered at least 50 tackles in each of his seasons in Canada.

Tiggle, 57, of Fort Washington, Md., was the CFL’s outstanding player in 1999 when he registered 106 tackles with two interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown.

Tiggle capped that season off by helping the Ticats dispatch the Calgary Stampeders 32-21 in the Grey Cup game held at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, which stands as the franchise’s last league championship.

Tiggle began his pro career south of the border with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1991-92) after being selected in the seventh round, No. 174 overall, of the 1991 NFL draft.

He appeared in 24 regular-season games with the Bucs, registering one sack.

Three times Tiggle was a CFL all-star (1994, ’98, ’99) and made 15 tackles in a 1999 game against the B.C. Lions. That stood as a team record until stalwart linebacker Simoni Lawrence set a CFL record with 17 tackles against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sept. 27, 2019.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 16, 2026.

The Canadian Press