A second-round pick of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1970 NFL Draft, Jim Corrigall turned down the NFL to sign with the Toronto Argonauts instead, and spent the next twelve seasons anchoring their defensive line. Corrigall, the Kent State All-American who became a Canadian Football Hall of Famer, died on July 15, 2026, at the age of 80, Kent State University announced.

Corrigall grew up in Barrie, Ontario, attending St. Mary's Elementary School and St. Joseph's High School before playing his only season of high school football as a senior at Barrie North Collegiate, according to the Barrie Sports Hall of Fame. Kent State recruited him on scholarship, and after a year on the junior varsity he started at defensive tackle and linebacker for three seasons, becoming the first Golden Flashes player voted first-team All-Mid-American Conference three years in a row and the first named team captain in back-to-back seasons, in 1968 and 1969. He finished his college career with a school-record 334 tackles, 183 of them unassisted, earned All-America recognition as a senior, played in the 1969 East-West Shrine Game, and was the first Canadian named to the Academic All-America team. Kent State retired his No. 79, one of only five jersey numbers the university has taken out of circulation.

The St. Louis Cardinals had already selected him in the second round, No. 33 overall, of the 1970 NFL Draft, but Corrigall chose Canada instead. He never left the Toronto Argonauts, playing all twelve of his professional seasons with the club, more than 145 regular-season games in all, and winning the Gruen Trophy as the East Division's outstanding rookie in 1970. Leo Cahill, the Argonauts coach who moved him from linebacker to the defensive line, recalled the switch simply: "He was actually a middle linebacker at Kent State and I converted him to defensive end," Cahill told TSN. In the 1971 Eastern Final, a two-game, total-point series against Hamilton, Corrigall sacked Tiger-Cats quarterback Wally Gabler for a safety in the opener and forced a fumble in the clincher, earning co-star honors as Toronto advanced, according to the Toronto Argonauts. Toronto went on to lose the Grey Cup itself, 14-11 to the Calgary Stampeders at Vancouver's rain-soaked Empire Stadium, decided by a late fumble.

Corrigall was named an Eastern Conference all-star eight times and an All-Canadian four times over his career. In 1975 he won the Schenley Award as the CFL's most outstanding defensive player, an honor for which he was also nominated as the league's most outstanding player and most outstanding Canadian that year, and again in all three categories in 1978. He played his final two years as a player-coach, and Toronto placed him on its all-time roster in 1997.

In 2019, Corrigall and his daughter, Amy Corrigall Jones, spoke publicly about a likely diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, telling reporters he had been knocked unconscious multiple times a year during his playing days.

Corrigall was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1990, and later into the Kent State Varsity K Athletics Hall of Fame, the Mid-American Conference Hall of Fame, the Summit County Sports Hall of Fame and the Barrie Sports Hall of Fame. He returned to Kent State as head coach from 1994 to 1997, compiling a record of 8-35-1, and went on to coach at the University of Akron, North Carolina State, Hiram College and Mount Union, along with high school programs in the Akron area including St. Vincent-St. Mary and Archbishop Hoban. Larry Kehres, the longtime Mount Union coach, remembered him as an instant friend: "In meeting Jim Corrigall, after five minutes, you just want the guy to be around. He's so alive and got so much positive spirit and energy," Kehres told Yahoo Sports. Gerry Faust, who coached at Akron, put it plainly: "If every coach was like Coach Corrigall as a person and the ethics and God-loving and caring for people and always looking out to help someone... that's what Corrigall's about."

Kent State announced Corrigall's death on July 15, 2026. "We mourn the passing of Kent State great Jim Corrigall," the university said in a statement reported by 3DownNation. "Jim embodied what it means to be a Golden Flash both as a player and a coach." He is survived by his wife, Marybeth, and their two children, Jim and Amy.

What Corrigall built stays close to the ground where he built it: the tackle record still standing at Kent State, the No. 79 taken out of circulation in Kent, a plaque in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, and a long list of players at Kent State, Akron, Hiram, Mount Union and Ohio high schools who had him as a coach once his playing days ended. He spent twelve seasons making himself the player the Toronto Argonauts could not afford to be without, then spent decades more trying to make other people better at the game he chose over the NFL.