Buck is back

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/06/2011 (5256 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT’S just an exhibition game.

That’s always the disclaimer from the coaching staff, the players and even the fans of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers when discussing a pre-season contest. It’s a chance to evaluate talent, a chance to see if rookies have learned anything over the last three weeks and, on a more serious level, an opportunity for some veterans to beat back the fires of the annual youth movement in some areas of the club.

So the score in Thursday’s exhibition tilt with the Toronto Argonauts at Canad Inns Stadium won’t matter.

It’s just an exhibition game.

RIGHT, BUCK PIERCE?

“I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself or be Superman or anything like that,” the Bombers starting quarterback said after practice Tuesday. “A lot of things have happened since I last played.”

Two hundred and ninety-one days.

That’s the amount of time between Pierce going down in the Labour Day Classic, an awkward fall that saw him dislocate and fracture the elbow in his throwing arm, to starting in a meaningless June pre-season game.

In that time, the 29-year-old from Kansas went through an extensive, painful rehab. Light tosses with a Nerf ball in October transformed into an aggressive workout regimen consisting of rebuilding the muscle memory in the joint by throwing hundreds of pigskins.

He stayed in Winnipeg this winter to work on his recovery.

He also became the face of the franchise and as he put it, “a Winnipeg guy.”

“I now know how excited people are when the sun starts to shine, how excited people get when the snow melts,” he said. “I’m the same way now. I was excited when it started to warm up because it’s time for football season. And when you see that excitement first-hand in the community, it’s hard not to get caught up in that.”

The branding of Buck Pierce — whether by accident or as a calculated marketing move by the organization — has been an interesting phenomenon the last 12 months. Not since the days of Matt Dunigan has the club seen a quarterback as universally cherished as Pierce. He happily gave up his free time for public appearances on behalf of the team and always made nice for the sponsors when asked, never once grumbling about having to reach out to potential ticket buyers.

The radio rights holder even convinced Pierce to do his own weekly radio show.

Pierce is the guy people want to share a beer with. His stock has never been higher but when people talk about the Bombers’ success on the field for 2011, the projection automatically includes this unfortunate condition: ‘If Buck can stay healthy.’

He started five games for the Bombers last season, finishing two of them.

He has one win in a Bomber uniform.

One win, and yet hundreds of No. 4 jerseys around town.

Imagine the reaction from the football community if he shared those beers following a Grey Cup win.

Let’s draw it back to the present: Thursday is just an exhibition game. Pierce will get the start and maybe play into the second quarter. He’ll try to keep his emotions about him and not get caught up in the fact it will be his first real game action in nearly 10 months.

And the overwhelming encouragement for Pierce will continue to be there — from both the fans and the organization — when he takes the field again.

Might it be time for Buck to start paying this faith back?

“There’s no pressure, I just have to go out and be myself and be the guy they trust me to be,” he said. “There’s a lot of pride in this city and a lot of pride in this team, and it’ll be exciting to get back out there. It’ll be fun to run around again.”

Can someone remind Pierce that it is just an exhibition game?

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca

today’s training camp report C6