Second life for Newman

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This article was published 15/06/2015 (4024 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Graig Newman isn’t taking anything for granted this year.

A year ago at this time Newman already knew his season was over. Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ training camp in 2014 is one he’d like to forget. The kid who felt invincible was, in his own words, humbled.

“I’d never been injured before in my football career,” Newman said. “I got a little dose of humble pie.”

The injury, which came in the club’s second exhibition game against the Calgary Stampeders, was freak in nature and resulted in a gruesome spiral fracture in his fibula and a dislocated ankle. Some dark days were on the horizon for the linebacker/DB.

“It was a long road,” Newman said. “Those days were tough and it’s where I had to lean on my support group. My parents, my girlfriend, friends, the training staff and the rest of the team — everybody was encouraging me.”

The key for Newman was to not feel sorry for himself, although he couldn’t help it the first few days.

“It was a new position for me having never been injured like that before. Sitting on the sideline, I wasn’t used to it,” he said. “I just felt that there was nothing I could do about it anymore, so why feel bad about it? I’m a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, so I tried to maintain that throughout the injury.

“I was still on the team and still around the team, and basically I was still part of the team in spite of the injury. People made sure to incorporate me in what was going on.”

But make no mistake, the Langley, B.C., native never felt his career was in jeopardy.

‘It was a long road. Those days were tough and it’s where I had to lean on my support group’

— Bombers DB Graig Newman, on his season-ending injury last year, before the season even started

“No. 1, as soon as you have that mindset, that doubt starts to creep in and you might end up in that position,” he said. “The way I tackled it and attacked it was focusing on coming back, getting better and being better than I was before. Mentally, I think I’m stronger and more focused this year.”

Newman’s value, among other things, lies in his versatility. While Bombers defensive co-ordinator Richie Hall has him at the weak-side linebacker position at the moment, the former Saskatchewan Roughrider has also been asked to become fluent in other spots.

“Injuries do happen, as you know,” Newman said. “So I have to be able to play multiple positions — free safety, defensive back. We’ve got some different packages in there. I like to consider myself a jack of all trades.”

Newman returned to practice Saturday after another spell on the sideline. But instead of six weeks in a cast, he sat for six days with an unrelated, undisclosed injury.

“This injury had nothing to do with the previous one, it was just a training camp thing,” Newman said. “You’re grinding two-a-days and your body tightens up sometimes. But I’ve worked my way through it and got my body right, so my leg is fine. I’m leaving that to last year. You can’t be thinking of the past, thinking about if you’re going to get hurt.

“(I’m) feeling good, finally. Last year was a pretty tough year to say the least, and this year I got dinged up in training camp. I finally got rejuvenated and feel 100 per cent so it’s just nice to be back out there.”

‘I think that shows in my game play. I’m just a little bit looser and just enjoying myself out there. Sometimes it takes an injury to realize that’

— Graig Newman

As demoralizing as 2014 was at times for Newman, the 25-year-old is living with a new lease on life.

“I think that shows in my game play. I’m just a little bit looser and just enjoying myself out there,” Newman said. “Sometimes it takes an injury to realize that.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

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