Hefney pleads guilty to drug charges

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This article was published 26/09/2019 (2180 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jonathan Hefney never craved the spotlight.

When he was a player in the Canadian Football League, first with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for four seasons and then for stints with the Calgary Stampeders and Montreal Alouettes, he was considered the ultimate team guy.

He was the kind of teammate that would run through a wall for anyone wearing the same jersey. He smiled on days when there was nothing to be happy about. He made others laugh when he felt they needed it, which was always.

“He was big for me my first year, a veteran in the room that would talk to everyone, take them under their wing,” defensive tackle Jake Thomas, the remaining active Bomber to have played with Hefney, said Thursday.

When Hefney was forced to limp away from football after suffering career-ending injuries to his neck and right arm from a helmet-to-helmet collision while playing for the Alouettes in 2015, he didn’t advocate to become the poster boy for the CFL’s players union. But, like most team players, when the CFLPA needed someone to help shine a light on the league’s insufficient long-term medical coverage plan, the Rock Hill, S.C., native didn’t hesitate to answer the call.

For years, while the CFL continued to refuse to amend their disability insurance — a plan that covers players over a 12-month span, beginning from the date of injury — Hefney was back at home still fighting what, at times, looked to be an impossible battle with his former employer. All the while, he was combating pain and struggling to pay his medical bills.

So his influence wasn’t lost on teammates and friends when news broke late Wednesday that Hefney had pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine and was sentenced to nine years in a South Carolina prison. No one who spoke to the Free Press for this story condoned Hefney’s actions and all believed there were better options available.

Still, he was viewed more as a victim than a convicted criminal, with all left thinking the same thing.

“I see it as a tragedy,” said Bombers Hall of Fame defensive tackle Doug Brown, who played two seasons with Hefney before retiring in 2011. “We don’t know what decisions Jonathan Hefney would have made had he not had all these ham-stringing variables. You have to think he’d be in a much more favourable situation in terms of options he had in his life.”

That night on Oct. 1, 2015, Hefney did what he had always done. By then, he had already earned the reputation of being one of the most fearless and ferocious defensive backs in the CFL. So, when Ottawa Redblacks fullback Patrick Lavoie, a 6-2, 240-pound mammoth of a man, tried to break up the right side, instinct kicked in.

Hefney found his line, put his head down and, with his usual brute force, drove forward.

“That’s how we’re bred down here in the south,” former teammate Alex Suber, who spent three seasons with Hefney in Winnipeg, told the Free Press in 2016 after Hefney signed a one-day contract to retire as a Bomber. “He’s never shied away from a tackle. That’s what made him the type of guy you want to be on the field with.”

What followed was the nightmare of every professional athlete. Hefney suffered three fractured vertebrae and, to regain feeling in his right arm, required a steel plate and screws to be inserted into his shoulder. He also needed muscle-tissue grafts to properly heal.

“He was a guy that busted his ass to play professional football in Canada and he had a horrible injury that left him incapacitated, without the use of his right arm. I don’t know if that was the reason for what was happening, but I’m sure it was part of it, trying to find a way to deliver for his family,” Bombers right guard Patrick Neufeld said. “You just feel terrible for a guy like that. I’m not condoning what he did, obviously. But I just feel really bad for the guy. I was never his teammate but I was around him and I heard a lot of good things about him. You just feel sick to your stomach about that.”

In total, Hefney was told he would need three surgeries, each of which would run him in excess of US$80,000.

The first fell into the one-year injury window by the CFL, meaning it was covered. The next one, which came in 2018, required help from a GoFundMe effort that was supported by friends and family, as well as CFL fans across the country. But that support didn’t cover all his expenses. Hefney hasn’t had the third surgery and it’s unclear if he will while in prison.

In a sad twist of irony, it was the efforts by Hefney and the CFLPA that led to real change this past off-season. With a new CBA needed, it was the perfect time for the CFLPA to lay its cards on the table with the hopes of improving the long-term disability plan. While Canadian players were already covered by their own local plans, getting American players that added insurance became a major driving force in negotiations.

“We found out last night and were saddened to learn of the choices made by our former member. He had sustained serious and life-altering injuries during his career and having stayed in contact with him we knew of the struggle he was facing both physically and financially,” CFLPA executive director Brian Ramsay told the Free Press. “We continue to actively pursue long-term care and rehabilitation for our players. Collective bargaining has increased coverage from 12 months to 24 months in 2019 and then to 36 months post injury in 2020 and beyond. This is a step in the right direction. However, we are not finished in our pursuit of coverage for workplace injuries for all athletes in Canada.”

While these changes can certainly be viewed as improvements, and could very well prevent similar situations such as Hefney’s to happen in future, some were still left wondering if something could have been done sooner.

“This is a cautionary tale. It’s a cautionary tale for American players that come up here,” Brown said. “It was a total gamble and roll of the dice for these players. There is some sort of measure now that would help out a player in Jonathon Hefney’s situation, it’s just too bad that it’s too late for him. You have to think that would have saved him.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jeffkhamilton