In 1953, Bobby Ackles became the first water boy in the BC Lions Football Club. Today he is the team’s President and CEO. His star rose quickly from the very beginning, taking him from the sidelines to the top job and three Grey Cup championships. An integral member of the Lions’ organization for over 50 years, Bobby Ackles has seen and done it all in the extraordinary world of professional football.

Not only did he go from lowly Water Boy to the executive suite in the CFL, Ackles also spent fifteen years in the NFL–six seasons with the mighty Dallas Cowboys, and then on to the Arizona Cardinals, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Miami Dolphins—and he even served a brief stint in the short-lived XFL as Vice President and General Manager of the Las Vegas Outlaws. As the only man to hold executive positions in all three professional leagues, Ackles offers up a unique perspective on pro football in North America.

The Water Boy is Bob Ackles’ engaging memoir, a candid, personal account of his life and his amazing career in the game of football. From his humble beginnings, personally and professionally, Ackles has risen to become one of the most respected executives in football and in sports in general, both in Canada and the United States.

With veteran journalist Ian Mulgrew, Ackles shares his rich, expansive life openly, with humour and amazing insights into the sport of football and its personalities, his long-running love affair with his wife Kay, his grasp on leadership and running a successful business.

The Water Boy is a fascinating look inside the locker rooms and the owners’ boxes of the football world in North America, and an engaging telling of a life lived to its fullest.