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It’s hard not to shed a tear for Jerry (Soupy) Campbell, an Ottawa Rough Riders legend and a legendary rascal. We’ll get to the stories later.

Campbell died in Toronto early Wednesday, felled by a heart attack at the age of 73.

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He suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but it was when he really lived that we remember him — he always had that mischievous twinkle in his eye. There are stories of Soupy’s shenanigans, some of them outrageous, some of them X-rated — many of them true.

“Soupy was a great guy, fun-loving, didn’t have a care in the world,” said former Rough Riders receiver Jeff Avery, who was in training camp with Campbell in 1976 and has been president of the CFL Ottawa Alumni Association for the past 15 years.

Award-winning The Fifth Estate journalist Bob McKeown was a good friend of Campbell’s. They were teammates in Ottawa when McKeown was a centre.

“He was a hero of mine before I arrived. I’d grown up in Ottawa and the Rough Riders were my team,” said McKeown. “When I made the team, they gave me the seat in the locker room next to him. We became great friends after that.