ONCE MORE, INTO THE DEN
Lions RB savours a second chance
Shaq Murray-Lawrence stopped in the end zone, clenched his hands into fists and flexed his arms.
He has sprinted his way through opposing defences for touchdowns before, but this two-yard run for a major score was far more significant for the 23-year-old running back from Toronto.
A third-round pick of the B.C. Lions in 2015, Murray-Lawrence was cut after the first week of this season.
Re-signed by the Lions earlier this month, Murray-Lawrence was given a new lease on his football career when he got into the offence versus the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the second half of B.C.’s Week 7 win at B.C. Place Stadium.
Unemployed days earlier, Murray-Lawrence was given a second chance. He ran the football like it might be his last. The Lions called on his number eight times in the second half against the Riders and the product of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas ran for 55 yards, averaging 6.9 yards per carry, with
a touchdown that put the game out of reach.
“I played with an edge that whole game. I might not get this opportunity ever again,” Murray-Lawrence said before Sunday’s game in Regina. “One minute you’re playing football and the next you’re out of it, and it’s not due to what you’ve done.
“I was coming off an injury. I wasn’t really able to prove my worth in training camp and I was let go. But hey, I got a second chance and I made the most of it.”
That injury, Murray-Lawrence said, was a concussion.
A day before the Lions took on Toronto in Week 2, the team announced Murray-Lawrence had been released. He went back to Ontario to live with his parents for the time being. He stayed in shape. He checked his phone to see if teams had inquired about him. He watched CFL games to stay up to date in the hopes that he may soon get a call from a team in need of a Canadian running back that ran the 40-yard dash in 4.41 seconds at the combine and has shown flashes in the return game as well.
“It sucks. It hurts,” he said. “And it shows you what other teams think about you as well, because I was on the streets for four weeks. I was talking to teams, but nothing was happening.”
In times that tested his resolve, it was the outpouring of support from his family and trainers, and messages from teammates and peers around the CFL, that reaffirmed his belief that he belonged on the field.
“I don’t think I would’ve made it without having all those people in my corner,” he said. “Week 1 goes by like, damn, nothing yet? Week 2 goes by. Week 3 goes by. Week 4, you’re like, ‘All right, is this it for the season? Do I get ready next year?’ ”
Murray-Lawrence said it was Neil McEvoy, the Lions’ director of football operations and player personnel, that contacted him to bring him back to Vancouver. He made it clear there was no bitterness toward the Lions. Motivation, though, to prove people wrong? That’s a different story.
“There was no question. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, should I come back?’ It was, ‘Oh, the Lions are calling me back? I’m there,’ ” MurrayLawrence said. “Now, I come in with that attitude that I’m going to show you guys why you made a mistake of letting me go.”
Part of a backfield that includes touchdown machine Jeremiah Johnson and the slippery, speedy Chris Rainey, Murray-Lawrence believes he has more to contribute in the offence, as well as the return game if he is placed in that situation. Second chances don’t always come around in pro football, and he’ll need to prove his ability beyond what was an emotional return.
On his first day back at practice, head coach Wally Buono asked Murray-Lawrence to address his teammates.
“Wally had me stand up and … tell the team what it felt like to not have football,” he said. “Especially when Wally and all the guys know it means so much to me and how young I am.
“I’m not really thinking about anything now: just football, football, football — and it was taken from me. You’ve got to be a tough person to be able to bounce back from that.”