FINDING HIS WAY ON GRIDIRON
Messam playing key role for Stamps
The scowl has become part of the persona.
The intimidating 6-foot-3, 254-pound presence is part of it, too.
Same with the brash attitude that can rub those who don’t know him the wrong way.
But all of it is a carefully staged act that allows the 31-year-old running back to do what he needs to do on the football field.
Away from where touchdowns are born and would-be tacklers are bull-dozed, Jerome Messam is a man with his first child on the way later this winter, and a player motivated to put four years of frustration behind him.
“Off the field, I’m the nicest guy, laid back and chill,” said Messam this week. “If you see me out, come say hi to me. I’m very open to meeting new people and the fans, and stuff like that. On the field, you’ve got to turn the light switch on. Football’s a very physical game and guys could die out there. Really. I’ve got to stay in my predator mode on the field to keep myself locked in and make sure I’m not prey out there.”
When Messam broke into the Canadian Football League in 2010 with the B.C. Lions, the Toronto kid doesn’t try to hide the fact he was just that — a kid.
“I think I came in with a chip on my shoulder,” Messam said.
“Obviously, I wanted to go to the NFL and I still feel like I’m an NFLtype player and I could start for any team in the NFL — that’s how I feel. When I came in, I was kind of in a headspace where I felt I was bigger than the CFL and I didn’t want to be here, really. I felt the CFL was always going to be here and I could play here by default. I knew that even when was 13 or 14 years old — no matter what I’ll be able to play in the CFL.” He wasn’t wrong. No one has ever doubted Messam’s talent, even back then as a 25-year-old rookie.
These days, Messam is healthy and in an enviable situation with an offence pretty much tailored to his skill-set.
But the path to get to this point was a winding one.
THE TRANSGRESSIONS
The year 2010 wasn’t kind to Messam on the field or off the field.
On the field, he carried the ball just 23 times for 92 yards and two touchdowns.
Off the field, Messam was slapped with an assault charge after hitting a bouncer outside a London, Ont., nightclub, and then had a well-publicized run-in with teammate Paris Jackson inside the Lions locker-room.
“We’re, actually, great friends to this day,” Messam said. “He took me under his wing when I got there and it was just a situation that got out of control and it was kind of like two brothers fighting.”
The third strike came the following spring during training camp in Kamloops, when Messam didn’t exactly endear himself to a select group of veterans, after a night out gone bad.
Nothing nefarious, just boys being boys at the wrong time in the eyes of some teammates.
That was the last straw for Lions GM/head coach Wally Buono.
“When we had to make a tough decision, yeah, it was tough, not only from a football perspective, but with Jerome, we always kind of had a special affection for him because he was one of those guys that was fun to be around, yet, at times, he’d make choices without realizing the consequences,” recalled Buono, leading into the second meeting of the season between the Lions at Stamps on Friday at McMahon Stadium.
OFF TO EDMONTON
With the training camp curfew incident still fresh in his mind, Buono shipped Messam to the Edmonton Eskimos in exchange for a fifth-round pick in the 2013 CFL Draft on June 19, 2011.
Messam made them regret that almost immediately.
That year, he became the first Canadian running back surpass 1,000 yards since Sean Millington did it with the Lions in 2000, rumbling for 1,057 yards and six touchdowns.
He understood why he was traded
I was kind of in a headspace where I felt I was bigger than the CFL and I didn’t want to be here, really. I felt the CFL was always going to be here.
away. “The focus was Grey Cup that year and Wally wasn’t settling for anything less,” Messam said.
“I feel like they didn’t want any distractions and they felt like if I was already making bad decisions in training camp, it might’ve carried on throughout the year.
“In a way, I have some regrets, but it’s growing pains,” Messam added. “You live and you learn.”
WELCOME TO MIAMI
The big season Messam produced in Green & Gold was supposed to be his CFL swan song.
But that November in the West semifinal, Messam tore the meniscus in his knee, an injury that would hamper him long after he signed a contract with the Miami Dolphins on Feb. 15, 2012.
“I wasn’t healthy at all, man,” Messam said. “I went just go to and just to experience it.”
Messam was cut in late August without ever getting much of an opportunity to show that his size/ speed package was exactly what the Dolphins needed.
To this day, it stings.
THE THREE-DOWN RETURN
Messam returned to a logjam in the Eskimos backfield, one that featured productive runners in Cory Boyd and Hugh Charles.
His 2012 season finished with just 168 rushing yards and one touchdown in nine games, before he was dealt to the Montreal Alouettes in the off-season for a sixthround pick in the 2013 draft, one round later than the first time he was traded.
While he didn’t have the same type of production that season, Messam returned from the NFL with a new state of mind.
“Once I came back, I had to change my mindset,” Messam said. “I was like, ‘Look, man, I’m getting old. If there is where I’m going to be, I want to be the best up here and be a hall-of-famer up here.’”
But Messam couldn’t shake the injury bug during what would end up being his lone season in Montreal in 2013, as he rushed for 565 yards on 121 carries, finding the end zone twice.
FRESH START ON THE PRAIRIES
The Alouettes cut Messam in June of 2014, and it might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to him.
After two years of injuries, Messam remembers starting to feel like himself late in the 2014 season once he signed on with the Saskatchewan Roughriders for a bargain-basement price.
In 14 games, he produced a 5.5 yard-per-carry average, his highest since his breakout campaign in 2011.
Messam carried that into 2015, and while the season was horrendous for the Riders results-wise, the big tailback was rejuvenated to the tune of 826 yards through 15 games. And then he was traded again. But this time, instead of being shipped away because he wasn’t wanted or needed, Messam was the apple of the Stampeders’ eye at last year’s trade deadline, a ready-made replacement for an ailing Jon Cornish.
While the fans and media speculated, Messam knew Cornish was about to retire due to multiple concussions.
“I knew Jon was on his way out,” Messam said. “He spoke to me, personally, when I got here.
“I had the vision. I knew what it was. It surprised the hell out of me. I thought Saskatchewan was a great fit because of what we did and we were putting up numbers on offence, we just weren’t winning. I wasn’t trying to jump ship. But when I got here, I was like, ‘You know what? I can already envision what it’s going to be.’ ”
Messam finished out the season with 180 rushing yards in two regular season games to surpass 1,000 yards for the second time in his career, and then signed a new two-year deal in the off-season to return to Calgary.
“This is where I want to be for the rest of my career,” Messam said.
“I know I can go a strong three more, for sure. I’ve definitely got at least three more 1,000-yard seasons in me.” These days, Messam is different.
He’s not the same guy that was forced to unceremoniously exit the West Coast.
“I do speak to him, usually, before every game, whether it was here, Saskatchewan, Edmonton, Montreal and even Calgary,” Buono said. “Do I see a more mature guy? I think so.”
Stamps head coach Dave Dickenson has been impressed with Messam’s presence.
“When a guy’s been on multiple teams, you start wondering,” Dickenson said.
“I definitely kept him on a fairly short leash, but he’s proven to me he does work and he’s a guy that you can trust in protections and I’ve liked what he’s done this year.”