CFL players find odd jobs to make ends meet

This past Saturday was supposed to be the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ season-opening game in Hamilton, a rematch of the 2019 Grey Cup.

Players know exactly what that would have meant for Monday.

“The first payday, yeah,” O -lineman Jermarcus Hardrick said. “Haven’t got paid in a while, man. I can’t complain. But, man, it would be good to get paid, especially with a wife and three kids.”

Hardrick was on the phone from his home in Lincoln, Neb.

Like all Cflers, he’s without a paycheque until further notice, as the league continues trying to tackle the most elusive opponent it’s ever had to face.

“I’m just glad I got a little smarter,” Hardrick said. “You always feel this pressure of, ‘I gotta take care of the family, I gotta be the breadwinner.’ If I didn’t have things saved up, I’d be really hurtin’ right now. I couldn’t imagine the young guys.

“As it goes longer and we don’t get paycheques, that’s when I start to panic a little bit.”

Players young and old have turned to odd jobs to generate at least some income during the shutdown. Cutting grass, renovating houses, delivering restaurant food — some are taking university courses.

Hardrick, known as “Yoshi” by many, took a job as a package handler for UPS, 2 a.m. to 8 a.m.

“Saw the hours, and thought the kids will be asleep, I won’t miss any time — it sounds great,” he said. “And after the first week I felt like I played a football game every day. My lower back was hurting.”

Mail-order has boomed during the pandemic, and Hardrick’s six-person UPS crew was handling up to 30,000 packages a day.

He estimates he personally lifted and moved up to 5,000, daily.

“It was mayhem,” he said. “There were heavy packages.

I’ve seen so many pools, so many trampolines, so many weight sets. I’ve seen it all come through. You have to pick it all up. So many things get returned. You think a box is light because it’s a little box, you go down to pick it up, it’s a car part. You almost slip your back out.”

It was even competitive, as crews chased the record time of 62 minutes to load the biggest truck.

“It was rough, but I loved it,” Hardrick said. “I was, ‘Football is easy compared to this.’ I just respected those guys so much more. And I didn’t want to be a quitter.”

He also didn’t want his new co-workers to know he was the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers star playing in the CFL.

“The first week I told everybody my name was Mark,” he said. “Everyone knows Jermarcus, and everyone knows Yoshi. So I was going by Mark for the first week.”

They quickly got wise to him. “And the second week I came in it was all about the CFL, all about the ’Huskers. It was great conversations.”

But two weeks was enough. Hardrick knows what side his bread is buttered on, and a bad back wouldn’t serve him well whenever football does return.

With some sports in Lincoln returning, he’ll get back to refereeing kids’ games. It pays well, and is easier on his back.

He also went on Youtube and brushed up on CFL history.

“I learned a little bit more about who I play for,” he said. “The Bud Grants. The Dieter Brocks. I’ve been watching Dunigan and Stegall. I’ve just been catching up on the past, things I didn’t know about the CFL.”