Hey, check out Baggs

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Roughriders’ defensive end Stevie ‘Shakespeare’ Baggs (‘All I do is make plays’) celebrates after making another one in the West Final against Calgary last Sunday. (TROY FLEECE / CANWEST NEWS SERVICES ARCHIVES)

CALGARY -- The cameras have found Stevie Baggs, but that's hardly new.

The man nicknamed Shakespeare -- "because all I do is make plays" -- is posing for photos. Again. He is recruited to do TV interviews with his Saskatchewan Roughriders teammates. Again. And everyone, it seems, wants a piece of the flamboyant star with the thousand-watt smile.

It's been like this since he stepped off the plane at the airport on Tuesday when the Riders arrived here for Grey Cup Week. Shoot, it's been like this all season as Baggs has gone from part-timer to prime-timer in a campaign filled with one highlight-of-the-night play after another.

But the road Baggs took to get to this moment is hardly free of potholes. No, it is filled with detours, with periods of self-doubt and with stops in cities all over pro football's road map from... well heck, let's have him tell it.

"I've been in every pro league, from the NFL to NFL Europe to the Arena League to Canada," Baggs said Thursday. "From the Detroit Lions to the Frankfurt Galaxy to the Jacksonville Jaguars to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to the Edmonton Eskimos, back to Winnipeg, to the Orlando Predators and now with Saskatchewan.

"It's been crazy, man. Crazy."

Interestingly enough, the latest chapter in The CFL Years began in Winnipeg more than three years ago.

"First time I had ever been to Canada was Winnipeg. And in my rookie year I stayed in the same hotel room with Shawn Mayne, now with Montreal, all season," Baggs recalled. "We had two of everything -- two TVs, two phones, two refrigerators... it was crazy. Every day I was frustrated and I didn't know what I was going to do. Every day I went to work but knew I probably wasn't going to play. And when you're on the practice squad, you know it could be over on any day and you could be released.

"I was making $500 Canadian a week and I think I left that year having made $20,000 before taxes. Thing is, when I first got there, I had all my bags with me. I didn't know what to expect and I didn't know how much of a long shot it was for me to even make the team. I had no idea. I had so much confidence in what I could do after I had been released by the Jacksonville Jaguars, I just figured I'd come up to Canada and make the team.

"I was wide-eyed and I didn't know a thing about the ratio."

The Bombers loved Baggs' skill set. They loved his enthusiasm every time he stepped on the field and marvelled at how a pigeon-toed practice-roster player had instantly developed such a bond with fans. But the two names listed ahead of him on the depth chart were written in ink: Tom Canada and Gavin Walls. He appeared in just five games as a rookie and when he reported to training camp a year later, nothing had changed and the Bombers opted to put him on the practice roster again.

That's when the Eskimos called with a promise of playing time and starts. He got on the field, but didn't start and was released. Back to Winnipeg and to a team headed to the Grey Cup and with no room at the defensive end spot. That winter, desperate to put some coin in his jeans, he signed on with the Arena League's Predators, but lasted only two games. Not surprisingly, his career flashed before his eyes.

"I was like, 'Now what am I going to do? I'm SOL,' " Baggs said. "I worked as a personal trainer. I did some substitute teaching. And I got to the point where I thought I was going to have to cut my hair and get a regular job. One of my friends had a trucking business and after I drove a truck full of copiers and equipment from Atlanta to south Florida, my phone rang and it was (Saskatchewan GM) Eric Tillman. Funny how that works, huh?"

Funny, yes, but let's not misrepresent his return to the CFL as simply fate. Baggs has skills and he does make an instant impression with people. But he also had a will to keep at it when everyone -- and everything -- told him to walk away from the game and put his international business degree to work.

"There were times I was really ready to give up," Baggs admitted. "But I just knew in the back of my mind that if I got a chance to play I was going to show people something. But that faith was tested tremendously.

"Looking back now, I can tell you I had a great experience in Winnipeg. I'm a firm believer in humility comes before honour, and '06 and '08 were two of the most humbling years for me. See, that's what people don't understand. I hope I don't offend folks with my celebrating or my emotion when I'm on the field. I'm not trying to showboat or anything, it's just that I've been through so much in my whole career, from high school to college. I've always had to prove myself and now that I've finally got my opportunity, I'm just having a ball out there and with all this."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 27, 2009 C1