Willie Bethea, who played fullback for eight seasons with the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, passed away last week. He was 85. Bethea played on the Tiger-Cats teams who won the Grey Cup (CFL Championship) in 1963, 1965, and 1967. He was inducted into the Tiger-Cats Wall of Honour in 2012.
Today’s card of the day is Bethea’s 1970 O-Pee-Chee card, which was issued in his last year of football. It shows him in his Ticats striped sleeves, which I really like. 1970 O-Pee-Chee cards have the same design as 1969 Topps second series cards, except that the original backgrounds of the photos are left intact, not covered with a solid color. The image on Bethea’s card is one of the better ones in the set; many of the cards show the players in the dark, in the distance, or both.
Bethea also appeared on a 1968 O-Pee-Chee card. You can see all of the 1968 and 1970 O-Pee-Chee CFL cards in the Gallery.
