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A long, distinguished career north of the border has landed Barron Miles a spot in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
The former Nebraska Cornhusker, who won a national title in 1994 before embarking on a 12-year Canadian Football League career that included two Grey Cup championships as a player, was announced last week as an inductee into the Canadian Hall of Fame’s 2018 class.
Miles, who was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, and spent a year in NFL Europe before starting his CFL career in 1998, became known not only as a top-shelf cover man, but also a special teams ace.
He remains tied for second in CFL history for interceptions with 66 and has the league’s all-time career mark for blocked kicks with 13.
A six-time all-star, Miles was the East Division’s nominee for the CFL rookie of the year in 1998 with the Montreal Alouettes and was the East Division’s nominee for the most outstanding defensive player in 2002. Of note, that year he was beaten out for the league’s most outstanding defensive player award by Elfrid Payton, the father of current Phoenix Sun Elfrid Payton.
But Miles was long regarded in CFL circles as a dedicated and cerebral student of the game, and took that expertise straight to the coaching ranks when he retired as a B.C. Lion in 2010. Currently a defensive backs coach with the Edmonton Eskimos, Miles spent one season as a defensive assistant in B.C. before three seasons as the DBs coach for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Miles also did a season with DBs on the staff of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers before moving on to Edmonton.
Miles won Grey Cups in 2002 with Montreal and 2006 with B.C., and added to that total as a coach with wins in 2011 with B.C. and 2013 with Saskatchewan.
“The work I put in over the years, I always wanted to be known as one of the top DBs in the league and when anyone talks about great DBs, I want my name to come up,” Miles told Morley Scott of Edmonton radio station 630 CHED.
Miles is the first former Husker to be inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and will go in officially in a ceremony in Hamilton, Ont., in September.