Farthing brings expertise to Roughriders
REGINA — Dan Farthing looks like he could still play for the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Instead, he’ll be working for them.
The former Roughriders slotback, who currently works as the director of sport performance training at Regina’s Level 10 Fitness, was named the CFL team’s strength and conditioning co-ordinator Thursday.
The job officially brings the 42-year-old product of Saskatoon back to the club with which he played from 1991 to 2001.
“A lot of times, when players leave the game, they talk about missing the guys (and) missing the locker-room atmosphere,” Farthing said during a media conference at the Roughriders’ workout facility. “This lets me keep in touch with that and listen to a little bit of the banter. “It feels pretty good.” Farthing started working with Roughriders players in a strength and conditioning role even while he was still playing. He recalled helping offensive lineman Gene Makowsky develop a workout strategy — and Farthing has done the same for players since setting up Level 10.
On Thursday, he said his new job will allow him “to escalate the role and to formalize the relationship.”
He’ll offer players exercise and nutritional advice, supervise their training and, if necessary, “be a rah-rah guy to help them give that little bit extra of intensity” during workouts.
Roughriders assistant general manager Jeremy O’day, who as a player trained with Farthing, said bringing the Regina resident into the fold was a natural.
“We didn’t necessarily look at our players and think that conditioning was an issue, but we did see it as something we can improve,” O’day said. “We’ve been looking at this for a number of years and it has been talked about, but we wanted to go ahead and move forward with it.
“We saw a natural fit with Dan already being here, already being in the community and also being a Roughrider before.”
Farthing was the Roughriders’ first pick (second overall) in the 1991 draft out of the University of Saskatchewan. Over his CFL career, he caught 384 passes for 5,108 yards and was the Riders’ nominee for the CFL’S most outstanding Canadian award in 1997 and 2000. He was inducted into the team’s Plaza of Honor in 2009.
Asked what the strength and conditioning field was like when he played, Farthing said: “Non-existent.”
“We had some loosely organized workouts one year in the locker room and that was fantastic,” Farthing said. “People ate it up. They showed up at 8 a.m., in the off-season on the cold winter mornings because the offseason is a grind for a football player ...
“(Football) is a unique sport in that over half the year is off-season. It becomes a grind. It becomes monotonous. To have someone supervising you and guiding you and getting you to give that little bit extra was super-, super-helpful.”
He opened Level 10 in 2003, and since has amassed a long list of accomplishments: Certified strength and conditioning specialist with the National Strength and Conditioning Association, certified exercise physiologist with The Canadian Society for Ex- ercise Physiology, consultant for the Sport Medicine and Science Council of Saskatchewan, etc.
Farthing will work with the Roughriders at Level 10, at the team’s training facility and in the Credit Union Eventplex until the weather allows for outdoor workouts at Mosaic Stadium.
O’day stressed that the workouts will be voluntary, but the team’s hope is that the players will make use of Farthing as a resource.
“As a player, if you know you have this kind of yearround support from a club, it would be something that you would value very, very greatly,” Farthing said. “It might even be something that makes you want to stick around in the off-season to access it.”
EXTRAS: O’day said the Roughriders aren’t looking at this time at quarterback
Jarious Jackson, who was released by the B.C. Lions on Wednesday ... Saskatchewan also isn’t interested in running back Avon Cobourne, who was released Tuesday by the Hamilton Tiger-cats ... O’day said there was “no truth” to rumours that the Roughriders were looking at former NFL pivot Daunte
Culpepper.