Richmond returns to action

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This article was published 16/05/2023 (904 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Drew Richmond’s professional football career almost ended after seven plays.

The first-year Winnipeg Blue Bomber was filling in for all-star left tackle Stanley Bryant in a meaningless game in Montreal on Nov. 13, 2021, when he ended up at the bottom of a pile and tore everything in his knee.

Richmond — who hails from Memphis, Tenn., and played college ball at Tennessee and Southern California — was sidelined for not only the team’s 2021 championship run, but the entire 2022 season.

“I didn’t know if he’d even walk again,” said Bombers offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld after Tuesday’s training camp session at IG Field. Richmond declined to comment on the specifics of the injury.

The Bombers weren’t ready to give up on Richmond. They kept him around last season and placed him on the injured list. Richmond was at nearly every practice, but all he could do was stand there in street clothes and watch the O-line go to work without him.

“That was definitely the biggest thing that kept me in good spirits throughout my rehab process, knowing that I had a job and a team that looked at me as valuable,” said the 27-year-old Richmond.

“It didn’t matter so much that I wasn’t able to produce right now. It was the belief that they had in me in what I can do down the road.”

Richmond’s days as a spectator are over as he’s finally healthy and practising again. With Bryant and Jermarcus Hardrick locked in as the starting tackles, Richmond, now entering his third season, is hoping to make the team as a backup.

“It takes a lot to stick that through, see it through to the end,” said Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea.

“I think what’s excellent is that he must have kept his eye on the finish line, way off in the distance, every single day to be ready. You’ve got to work every day to get back to this point.”

Richmond easily could’ve moved on. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in interpersonal communication and a master’s in communication research. However, he wasn’t ready to give up on football, or the city he’d fallen in love with.

“I just really like being here in Winnipeg. Outside of football, I have a nonprofit here and (there are) a lot of great people in the community that I work with on a daily basis,” said Richmond.

“I have connections here and am building relationships. So, just being here in Winnipeg, it’s been more than just football.”

Richmond started his nonprofit, My Purpose Impact Enterprise, back in 2017 when he was at Tennessee. He provided 30 fans and their families with tickets to a Bombers game last season, but Richmond has much bigger goals for the future. He wants to open a health-care facility in Winnipeg that can assist people both physically and mentally, and he’s already in discussions with other nonprofits in the city to make it happen.

“Life has its ups and downs, but I’ve always been able to be blessed with some type of support. With this injury, the team very well could’ve cut me and left me out to dry, but they saw fit to keep me,” said Richmond.

“So, I’m very fortunate, and I believe we all are capable of very great things if we had support and people around us. I just try to extend what football has done for me and extend it to everybody else.”

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The Bombers wouldn’t be this patient with just anyone. The 6-5, 300-plus pounder brings a lot of potential to the table as he was a five-star recruit and the top high school football prospect in all of Tennessee. He would stay in his home state for the next four years and start three seasons for the Volunteers before transferring to USC.

Richmond didn’t quite live up to the hype and went unselected in the 2020 NFL Draft. He played the 2021 season in The Spring League before signing with the Bombers that summer. Despite all the ups and downs, Richmond is hopeful he can find success in the CFL.

“I’ve always been able to produce on the football field, but other pressures have come along with it,” said Richmond. “But it built me to this point to go through adversity, go through my injury with a smile, and get back to this point.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

Taylor Allen
Reporter

Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.

Every piece of reporting Taylor produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.