Wynn battles running backs ... and cattle
Dylan Wynn toils in the sweaty trenches of professional football, getting his hands dirty trying to tame the Big Beef on the other side of the line.
Just like his off-season job.
Ever since his latter high school years, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ high-octane defensive tackle — he ranks fourth in the CFL with nine quarterback sacks — has been working on a cattle ranch in Rio Vista, Calif., in the Sacramento River Delta about 100 kilometres northeast of San Francisco.
The Cabral Ranch, which breeds about 2,000 head of cattle, is owned by Myron Cabral, grandfather of Wynn’s lifelong friend Josh Cabral.
It’s a good, healthy and ultimately gratifying pursuit, but not a glamorous one. For instance, Wynn has to do a lot of “mucking,” which, for the agriculturally challenged, translates roughly into picking up the cow dung.
“S**t shoveler,” Wynn laughs. “That’s the type of work I do a lot of. I do a lot of the heavy stuff; I’m moving a lot of gates at corrals, moving a lot of bales, and we do a lot of that shovelling, too.”
His typical work day begins at dawn and continues into the very late afternoon. Then he’ll head to the gym for his rigorous football-oriented workout. He and his fellow ranch hands open their long shift by loading bales of hay into trucks then driving them to whatever pasture the cattle are grazing. Then they’re “on call for whatever has to get done, whether it’s cleaning out the chutes for when we bring everything in, fixing broken water mains, or setting up the gates for a certain corral so we can move a herd through and vaccinate. There’s always something that needs doing.
“Our big days are when we bring the entire herd in. We hold them (in a clamp), Josh and his grandfather vaccinate them, the vet will pregnancy test them and we’ll separate them from there.
“I tend to do the hardest labour type stuff so I’m in the corral separating the cows. We separate them into groups with paddles. You get in there with them and you try not to get run over.”
Sometimes it can get pretty physical and calves have to be grabbed, so, when he’s bringing down a running back or quarterback, does he ever have a brief flashback to calving season?
“That’s really funny, but no,” he replies. “We did have this one calf who had an injured hip and wasn’t using one of its legs. We’ve gotta get this calf, so I jump out of the Kubota — which is like a golf cart — and I start chasing it around. But it puts a couple of moves on me, and I can’t catch it.
“And everybody in the Kubota is like, ‘Oh you’re a pro athlete and you can’t even catch a hurt calf ?’ But, man, they’re fast.”
After Friday night’s game in Winnipeg and next week’s home game against Edmonton, he’ll head to California for the bye week. TSN is planning to send cameras to follow him during a work day at the Cabral Ranch.
Wynn was born in Texas and, after moving around because of his father’s (John Wynn) career in marketing, the family settled in California when Dylan was seven. Although he wears a cowboy hat on the ranch and for Ticats road trips, and says he might one day like to own “maybe some cattle and a few chickens,” his post-playing career will likely be in coaching.
“I come from a house of teachers. My wife (Kathleen Wynn) is a second-grade teacher, my mom (Karen Denne) is a teacher, my grandfather was a teacher. I have that in my blood and I feel I’d be naturally good at coaching and I have a passion for it.”
The family is originally from Nebraska and relatives owned farms but he had never worked on one until the Cabrals provided the opportunity during his teenage years. After he finished his 2018 season with the Toronto Argonauts, Wynn didn’t work the ranch because he was preparing for the quick onset of the short-lived Alliance of American Football. After that folded, he joined the Ticats as a free agent just before training camp.
Whenever his CFL season concludes in November, he’ll be back “mucking.”
“They’re kind enough to give me a job when I need it, especially with the CFL having such a long off-season,” Wynn says. “It’s something to get your mind off it. It’s good work and a lot of fun.”
And does ranching in any way help his football?
“Maybe,” he says. “It certainly helps my sanity. I like the outdoors, and I like being able to work with my hands at something I truly enjoy. I’m super dedicated and locked in when it comes to football stuff and you can’t be that focused on something 24-7.”