Fresh shot at football a dream

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This article was published 25/05/2016 (3403 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If Carlos Anderson didn’t believe in second chances before, he almost assuredly does now.

A year ago, the diminutive tailback was well on his way to staking a claim at a roster spot with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. This after figuring a future in football had come and gone, passing him by without so much as a sniff after a few years out of the game.

But a solid training camp and a 93-yard punt-return touchdown in the Bombers’ first pre-season game put the Northern Iowa alum on the map. The game may have forgotten him, but he appeared no worse for wear. A professional athlete’s competitive edge never really extinguishes, and Anderson was giving it all he could.

But football is anything but fair at times, and just over a week later as he was looking to cement his spot on the team, Anderson made a cut and tore an anterior cruciate ligament and his meniscus in the team’s final pre-season game against the Hamilton Tiger Cats.

“It felt great going into the game, just like every other game, and I just went and tried to make a cut,” he said. “Things happen. God works in mysterious ways. I’m forever indebted to (head coach Mike) O’Shea. He didn’t have to (invite me back).”

Never truly sure if he’d get a second chance, Anderson was delighted to see his phone light up and an extension of another invite on the other line.

“It feels great, feels great,” he said. “It was a long off-season, a long rehab, but it feels great to be back with the team.”

The time off was hectic, Anderson said. Many hours were spent with his wife, others praying and more rehabbing. He also found out a couple of weeks ago he has a child on the way.

“I had to stay prayed-up. I had to stay strong in my faith, had to trust God’s plan… which wasn’t for me to be here last year,” he said. “It looked pretty bleak for about four or five months. I was trying to stay strong and waiting on the call to see if (Bombers national scout Drew Morris) would call me back, and he did.”

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Anderson, who runs a fitness business in his hometown of Kansas City, now wants what he couldn’t have last year, and it’s hard work, again, that will get him back to where he was and beyond.

“Being hungry is what got me to where I was last year,” he said. “You always have to feel like you’re the sixth man of the depth chart, just trying to earn a spot. It’s a whole new offence, a whole new offensive coordinator, so I just need to come here and impress.”

Oh, and the knee?

“I got a lot of confidence in it.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @scottbilleck

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.

Every piece of reporting Scott 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.