Career
Grover Covington didn"t begin playing football until his junior year of high school, but was good enough to earn a scholarship to Johnson C. Smith University, an National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II school in Charlotte, North Carolina. Covington"s career began in 1981 as a free agent signing by the Montreal Alouettes. However a pre-season trade that year sent him to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, where he played his entire career.
Covington was a seven-time Canadian Football League All-Star and often led the league in quarterback sacks.
He finished his career with 157 sacks, a Canadian Football League record. In 1995 Covington was inducted along with former teammate Chet Grimsley into the Johnson C. Smith University Sports Hall of Fame.
(Grimsley"s 2011 book The White Golden Bulletin: How Faith in God Transcended Racial Barriers includes a chapter on the relationship between the author, a white student at the historically black university, and Covington) Covington was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2000 and, in November 2006, was voted one of the Canadian Football League"s Top 50 players (#28) of the league"s modern era by Canadian sports network TSN.
In addition he serves as a football consultant and motivational speaker. Covington"s son Christian plays for the Houston Texans of the National Football League.