Beyond football
His career secondary at this point, Argos, fans pray classy Ricky Ray’s injury isn’t life-altering
In the silence of the stadium, you stare at the motionless body of the great Ricky Ray, and inside you hope and you pray that everything is going to be all right.
For almost 20 minutes on Saturday night — and it seemed much longer than that — nobody moved, nobody said a whole lot, those in the stadium standing uncomfortably in unison, an ovation without noise or applause.
And at the 30-yard line, just behind some kneeling players in Double Blue, those praying alongside him, Jim Popp stood bent over, staring down at his veteran quarterback, the Grey Cup champion, wondering as all of us were wondering.
“I wasn’t thinking about the game at all at that point, just the person, just the person,” said Popp, the Argos general manager. “I thought about his health and wellbeing and the quality of life and I thought about his family. You’re married. You have kids, they’re in the stands watching this. What’s going through the family’s mind? I was thinking about his wife and his two kids and I contacted them as soon as I could with as much information as I had.”
We don’t know if Ricky Ray will ever play quarterback again in the Canadian Football League. We don’t know if he’d even want to, at this stage, at his age, after the frightening episode of Saturday night at BMO Field.
And we don’t know the extent of any neck injury he may have suffered in being taken head first to the turf by a pair of Calgary Stampeders defenders who actually collided with each other. It wasn’t a dirty hit of any kind. It wasn’t intentional. It was just football.
But it may have been career-ending.
That we can’t know about, yet. Not until we understand his condition better. Not until he spends time with his wife and his daughters and talks about the future. Popp grabbed the hand of his most storied player, just as receiver S.J. Green did, and Ray squeezed back, his eyes appearing moist. He squeezed not tightly, but enough of a squeeze that for the moment that it felt encouraging. As encouraging as it can with an athlete on a stretcher, surrounded by doctors holding their breath, a hard plastic collar around his neck, the family in the stadium in its own kind of shock.
“Can you imagine what it’s been like for him?” said Popp. “It’s pretty scary to go through something like that. It’s scary when you’re on the field like that. He probably hasn’t slept all night. He’s probably been up all night, away from his wife and kids, very anxious about his situation. Talking to him last night and today all I can say is, he was Ricky Ray. He was calm, poised, the way you see him all the time. He gave you that feeling, he’s Ricky. You can only hope and pray that everything turns out 100% well for his health.”
Popp wasn’t talking about football. He was talking about the rest of his life.
According to the update released by the Argos on Sunday afternoon, Ray remains in hospital resting comfortably, undergoing further tests. He did undergo concussion protocol testing and currently has no symptoms.
It isn’t known how long he will be in hospital.
“No matter how the game was going, it changed for both teams at that moment,” said Popp. “There was a lot of concern from both teams. It was amazing after the game how many of the Calgary players came up to us. Nobody wants to see anything like this.”
There was, throughout the stadium, a sense of nervousness, a sense of dread.
“A lot of people werescared,” said Popp. “You never want to see this.”
“Ricky is the best to ever do it,” said Bo Levi Mitchell, the Stampeders quarterback, not knowing like the rest of us, whether he will ever do it again. Ray has been the Argos quarterback since 2012, through parts of seven
seasons and two Grey Cup wins. That’s the same number Doug Flutie won in Toronto, more than Damon Allen or Matt Dunigan or Condredge Holloway won with the Argos. He’s played longer in Toronto than Robbie Alomar did or Doug Gilmour. Quietly, professionally and with dignity, he has served this team and this sporting market.
And now we can’t possibly know if this is the end. All we can do is hope he is well. This isn’t about football any more. As Popp said, it’s about the rest of his life.
When they drove him off the field Saturday night, the crowd cheered and then cheered louder and didn’t want to stop cheering, chanting his name, and many people cried.
“Ultimately, we want Ricky to be all right so he can go home and play with his girls and be with his wife and be a normal husband and father, you know?” Green told The Athletic.
That’s what matters today. And that’s what matters tomorrow.