Open letter to Ralph Wilson, late owner of the Buffalo Bills: 'Sorry, I was wrong'

Erik Brady | USA TODAY

Dear Ralph,

Two things I need to tell you today.

First: Happy Birthday. Wish you were here for your 100th.

And second: Got it wrong about you, oh, nearly 40 years ago. Sorry about that.

You owned the Buffalo Bills. I was writing columns at the Buffalo Courier-Express. You failed to sign linebacker Tom Cousineau, 1979’s overall No. 1 NFL draft choice. And I may have suggested you were, um, a penurious skinflint — or some other formulation that the fullness of time has revealed as flat-out false.

Today the foundation named for you is giving a combined $200 million to improve signature waterfront parks and regional trail systems in and around your hometown of Detroit and your adopted hometown of Buffalo. It’s all part of your big-hearted plan to give away the lion’s share of your fortune. (Or Lions’ share, given that you once owned a piece of Detroit’s NFL team.)

More: How fortune left by late Bills owner Ralph Wilson is benefiting Detroit, Buffalo

West Riverfront Park in Detroit and La Salle Park in Buffalo, if all goes according to plan, will be renamed for you — and it’s entirely fitting that your name is now linked with La Salle’s.

He made history going from Buffalo to Detroit. You made it going from Detroit to Buffalo. The French explorer was in search of the Northwest Passage. You were in search of a home for your fledgling football franchise.

Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle set off from the Niagara River on August 7, 1679, sailing into Lake Erie past what is now La Salle Park. Days later La Salle would reach the Detroit River, now home to West Riverfront Park. Oh, and you lived for years in a waterfront home on Lake St. Clair, which got its name because La Salle’s Griffon arrived there on the saint’s feast day.

Le Griffon made history as the first full-sized sailing ship to ply the upper Great Lakes. Alas, it sank on the return trip of its maiden voyage. You failed to sign Cousineau 300 years later. It didn’t sink the franchise.

Sure, Cousineau played for the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes at first, but you later traded his NFL rights to the Cleveland Browns for draft choices, including a 1983 first-rounder that turned into Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. All’s well that ends well.

One of the great weaknesses of sportswriters is many of us don’t know much about money and yet we’re not shy about telling people who’ve made a lot of it how we think they should spend it. I was loud wrong in 1979. Here’s proof: The sale of your team 35 years later helped to fund the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation.

And now the foundation named for you will spend more than $1.2 billion over a span of 20 years in and around Detroit and Buffalo, helping your favorite Rust Belt cities to reimagine themselves.

La Salle set sail. You set a sale. And both of you — adventurer and founder, sailor and seller — made Great Lakes history.