[2] He was a general manager for eight seasons with the Birmingham Barracudas and Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
He is a four-time Grey Cup champion as a director of player personnel and assistant general manager with the BC Lions and Calgary Stampeders (CFL) and he is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Shivers suffered the pains of racism at a young age when he lost out a job to be quarterback for his high school team to a white person.
Shivers went to school with Bill Russell, Frank Robinson, Curt Flood, Joe Morgan and Vada Pinson.
The only free agent signing with significant CFL experience was Calgary Stampeders backup quarterback Henry Burris.
Shivers had publicly proclaimed it would take three years to restore the Saskatchewan Roughriders to being an elite CFL team, so fans remained patient.
In 2002, Shivers made an important trade as the Roughriders' acquired Edmonton Eskimos starting quarterback Nealon Greene.
While not a dominant quarterback by any means, Nealon's ability to manage the game and limit mistakes was the finishing spark that helped the Roughriders qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 1997.
[8] Nevertheless, rising attendance also played a significant part as Shivers had restored respectability to the Riders which excited the fans to come out in greater numbers.
[9] However, in the later years of the franchise under Shivers' helm as GM, the team seemed to hit a wall or ceiling of progress, and their record stagnated instead of improving.
Many blamed the coaching, while others pointed their fingers back to when Shivers failed to re-sign Henry Burris, who moved onto success with the rival Calgary Stampeders.
Further tarnishing the team's image was the arrest of Kenton Keith, a Riders running back, for aggravated assault at a Regina nightclub, on July 12, 2006.
[12] Shivers had been known to speak his mind on issues facing his team and was not afraid to criticize players when he perceived a lack of effort or poor play.
Burris was a free agent in the spring of 2005 after the team narrowly lost the Western Final to the BC Lions the previous November.
point to the failure to re-sign Burris, rightly or wrongly, as being the beginning of the end for Shivers as the general manager of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
At the time of his firing, the board of directors, led by the President and CEO Jim Hopson,[15] openly expressed their displeasure at the lack of progress on thirteen soon-to-be Rider free agents not being signed for the 2007 season.
[16] With Shivers publicly refusing to accept forthcoming changes for the 2007 season in the Rider power structure, a clash was bound to happen.
[6] During his era as Riders' general manager, Shivers lived part-time in Regina, the home of the Roughriders during the season.