Class act Calvillo makes his exit
Anthony Calvillo was looking for a team. The Saskatchewan Roughriders were shopping for a quarterback.
The Roughriders made him an offer. So did the Montreal Alouettes. The year was 1998. The decision required considerable contemplation.
Calvillo eventually opted for the Alouettes, even though they had an established starting quarterback in Tracy Ham.
The Roughriders ended up signing Reggie Slack, whose late-season heroics had powered the Green and White to an improbable Grey Cup berth in 1997, to a renegotiated contract.
Slack’s pursuit of a healthy raise had prompted Alan Ford, who was the Roughriders’ general manager at the time, to explore other quarterbacking options. For starters, he wooed free-agent Danny McManus.
After visiting Regina, McManus opted to sign with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats — a decision that prompted the Ticats to release Calvillo. He signed with Montreal five days later.
He was officially an Alouette from March 18, 1998 until announcing his retirement on Tuesday, at age 41.
There is every reason to celebrate Calvillo’s remarkable, and perhaps unmatchable, accomplishments. He leaves the playing field as the owner of CFL records for passing attempts (9,437), completions (5,892), yardage (79,816) and touchdown passes (455).
A three-time winner of the CFL’s most outstanding player award, he was thrice a Grey Cup champion and a 10-time all-star.
The results validated Calvillo’s decision to sign with Montreal in 1998, even though he was ticketed to serve as an understudy.
But what if he had opted to join a team that offered him a greater chance to start right away?
How would Roughriders or CFL history have been influenced if Calvillo had been suitably enticed by overtures from Saskatchewan?
In the short term, the Roughriders did not experience any acute pain. Slack enjoyed his best regular season as a Roughrider in 1998, albeit for a team that won only five games.
Calvillo, meanwhile, saw only periodic duty in 1998, throwing more interceptions (10) than TD passes (six) when he did get an opportunity.
In 1999, however, the Roughriders and Slack reached a nadir. Saskatchewan won a mere three games. Slack revealed early in the season that he had a mysterious “medical addiction.”
During the same season, Calvillo was able to start nine games in place of an injured Ham, compiling a quarterback rating of 108.4 along the way.
Ham retired after the 1999 campaign. Calvillo took over. The rest was history. And so was Slack as a Roughrider.
From 2000 until the summer of 2013, Calvillo was entrenched as the Alouettes’ No. 1 quarterback. When healthy, which was most of the time, Calvillo was the starter. Period.
The Roughriders, by contrast, started the following quarterbacks during Calvillo’s heyday in Montreal: Henry Burris, Marvin Graves, Keith Smith, Kevin Glenn, Nealon Greene, Marcus Crandell, Kerry Joseph, Darian Durant, Steven Jyles, Michael Bishop, Ryan Dinwiddie and Drew Willy.
Burris, Greene, Joseph and Durant saw the most time behind centre, with notable successes in each case.
Smilin’ Hank threw 30 TD passes in 2000 and nearly quarterbacked the 2004 Roughriders to the West Division title.
Greene, for all the criticism he faced, provided a measure of stability and contributed to an 11-win season in 2003.
Joseph was named the league’s most outstanding player in 2007, shortly before quarterbacking Saskatchewan to the third Grey Cup title in franchise history.
Durant, the unrivalled starter since 2009, has appeared in three Grey Cup games and won one — that being the 2013 final.
As for the losses Durant suffered in Grey Cup games, well, he can thank Calvillo for those.
In 2009, Durant’s touchdown run at 4:28 of the fourth quarter helped Saskatchewan assume a 27-11 lead over Montreal. Calvillo rallied Montreal for the game’s final 17 points.
The Roughriders’ 13th man meltdown has obscured other recollections of that game, which is unfortunate for Calvillo, considering the plays he made to rescue the Alouettes from being upset in the final.
The next year, Montreal again defeated Saskatchewan, prevailing 21-18. For the second consecutive Grey Cup game, Calvillo threw for 300-plus yards.
And to think that he could have been a Roughrider.
“I really thought about it for a long time, but I just felt that if I went to Saskatchewan and I was playing and I didn’t do well … then my career was going to be over,” Calvillo, who played for the Las Vegas Posse in 1994 before spending the next three seasons with Hamilton, told the Leader-Post’s Darrell Davis in 2006.
“I really didn’t want to take that chance because my confidence was not there like it is now in terms of, ‘Can I get the job done?’”
As it turned out, Calvillo’s career did conclude in Saskatchewan.
He played his final game on Aug. 17 at Mosaic Stadium, where he suffered a concussion on a clean hit by Ricky Foley.
Unfortunately for everyone who loves the CFL, the quarterback who is widely referred as to as A.C. never played another down.
Thankfully, there is the body of work to appreciate, along with the exemplary manner in which he conducted himself throughout a career that has few, if any, parallels.
A.C., you see, also stands for all class.