Bomber hitman recalls first contract

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/03/2009 (6346 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When you put your John Henry on what will be, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the last contract you will ever sign before the game leaves you once and forever — at least in the physical sense — you can’t help but think of where and what you were doing when you signed the first one.

I still remember when the call came from my former agent Ken Austin in early June of 2001 on the same cell number I still have now (different phone). I was playing tennis with then Redskins placekicker Brett Conway on the courts by my townhouse in Sterling, Va. I was employed as an “internal product marketing manager” with a telecommunications company called Cable and Wireless and had to decide whether I wanted to come north and try a first season of CFL football, or hold out for another NFL opportunity, having just recently attended a mini camp with my former team, the Washington Redskins, who had just brought Marty Schottenheimer on board as their new head coach.

I had not played a down of football since training camp in 2000 and had been unable to work out for a single team that season after my release from Washington because of a broken left foot that took longer to heal than expected. In fact, early in 2001, when I received an invitation to come back and show my wares to Marty at a mini-camp in March, the Redskins were so leery of being on the hook should I re-injure my foot, I actually had to sign a waiver absolving them of any responsibility should it not hold up.

So when that call came on a beautiful, sunny day in ’01, the Bombers were in a bit of a hurry, since they had long ago traded with Calgary for my rights and I had already missed most of training camp while I was contemplating if I should wait for Washington to decide if they wanted to bring me back to their main camp as a fourth-year pro.

The Bombers were offering me $75,000 back then — not an overwhelming proposition for someone who already had a base salary of US$80,000 working nine-to-five in the Internet boom, but it was pro football and they were offering 30K up front for six months work, and enough all-star incentives to gross six figures if I played as well as my agent thought I could.

After much consternation between rally points on the tennis court, I decided I would no longer wait for the Redskins to call and instead return to Canada, mainly because the Bombers were anxious to move and I was antsy about how many opportunities there would be out there for a player having sat out the entire 2000 regular season.

When I arrived in Winnipeg, I was met at the airport by this little dude with a ball cap and glasses who happened to be Brendan Taman, director of player personnel at the time. I could not believe that the indignant, hard ball negotiator I had heard over the phone was this little guy who looked like he weighed about as much as my right leg. He took me over to the offices on Maroons Road where I met Lyle Bauer, who looked like Paul Teutel from Orange County Choppers in one of his moods, and wary of the non-refundable 30K bet he had just made on me.

I then had a press conference with head coach Dave Ritchie, who I immediately took to when he told me that in the CFL “Americans are silver and Canadians are gold.” We went to lunch at Canad Inns and the first Bomber I met was Wade Miller, who promptly pointed at one of the other players across the table and exclaimed, “that guy there just got out of jail for manslaughter. Welcome to the team.”

The Redskins actually ended up calling in Week 3 of my first CFL season and left me a voice mail inviting me to their 2001 camp. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, nine years later — three of which I have lived here full-time — taking a chance on the CFL and Winnipeg was the smartest move I ever made in a football career that is now reaching its final chapters.

Doug Brown, always a hard-hitting defensive lineman and frequently a hard-hitting columnist, appears Tuesdays in the Free Press.