All Aboard: The
following is an excerpt from a message I received from a fan and friend:
If you’re ever stumped for an idea, I would love to read how the
off-season (or mid-season) roster changes affect the team atmosphere. What kind
of effect does, or can, it have in the locker room? How does it change the game
for you when you play against guys like Jeff Keeping, or Jordan Younger later
on? How hard is it for a new guy to fit in, especially if he’s traded for a
lon- time teammate? Just something to think about.
I have decided to share a few thoughts I have about this
topic.
Tickets Please: I
think the title of this piece sums it up. The personnel changes that can happen
to a team can be beneficial on the field but remain difficult for the players
off the field. I first heard this saying from long-time teammate and sometimes
sage Chad Folk. It bears repeating. Talking about professional football, he
said, “It’s a great game, but it’s a terrible business.” Well, terrible might
not have been the adjective he used but you get the idea. There are several
things which cause player movement and I’ll tackle them one at a time.
The first locker room altering event is a trade. Over the
course of my career, trades have been relatively rare. Considering the fact
that they are a constant possibility, they actually don’t happen very often.
That being said, there are 2 trades that have affected our locker room and me
personally to a greater degree than the others. The first was a trade
orchestrated by J. I. Albrecht and John Huard. I remember walking into the
locker room the first day of training camp to be informed that our own Mike
O’Shea had been traded. Osh
has always been a team leader and an important cog of the machinery that makes
up a healthy locker room. Aside from being a friend, Mike is and was one of the
best linebackers to play our game. His replacement, Calvin Tiggle, was an
excellent player as well but was not someone I was good friends with. I think
that was a rather bad first step on a perilous journey for Albrecht and Huard.
This year, we I had a similar experience with a player who I have spent 1/3 of
my life sharing the same locker room. Again, this was a difficult situation and
many of us miss seeing Prefontaine on a daily basis. These types of
“blockbuster” trades, as well as many others, definitely remind the players
that this is a business. And the constant changing of personnel definitely
causes a constant morphing of the locker room chemistry.
Free agency is another occurrence that can cause player
movement. There have been many friends I have watched leave a team I have been
on for other teams. This can be tough, sometimes tougher than the trades
because the person who leaves often does so by his own volition. He likely has
good reasons to do so, but it still leaves one wishing they didn’t leave. In my
first year playing with the Argonauts, I had the good fortune of playing with
fellow offensive lineman Jeremy O’Day. He was also my roommate when we went on road
trips. Jeremy is a good friend despite the fact that we only played together
one year. The following year, O’Day signed with Saskatchewan as a free agent. He has gone on
to have a stellar career there. However, it would have been nice to keep him
around a little longer so I could have continued to teach him in his
apprenticeship as a fisherman. I was reminded of another good friend lost to
free agency a few weeks back. I had a phone interview to do with Mike Hogan and Sandy
Annunziata. Upon getting on air, I was verbally lambasted by Sandy for my physical
appearance…man I miss that guy. Sandy
made the locker room a place for laughing even if you had to laugh at yourself
once in awhile. This year, the o-line watched another good friend leave for
another team. Jeff Keeping, not only a friend but a UWO grad as well, signed
with Montreal.
Jeff was a great locker room guy and was a lot of fun. He is missed regularly
and we o-lineman are constantly text messaging him to let him know what he is
missing. Free agency is another way in which a football team faces changes. It
would be easy to call it a bad thing, but one must also remember that free
agency brings its share of good guys into the locker room as well.
The last way we can lose teammates is through retirement.
Retirement is an interesting event because sometimes it is chosen and sometimes
it is forced upon people. Jimmy Kemp is one of the best friends I have played
football with. He opted to retire from football in order to pursue other
interests. Jimmy still had years of playing left in his body but he chose a
different route. Though he has been retired for quite a few years, I still find
myself saying “I wish Kemp was around to see this!” Noah Cantor is another good
friend who retired while still able to play the game at a high level. Being a
defensive lineman, he had many faults, but he was still a good guy who made the
locker room a more enjoyable place to be. Losing such quality individual cannot
but make a difference to a team and individual players.
I have gone through the three main ways in which rosters are
altered: trades, free agency and retirement. They cause a considerable amount
of change in a locker room. At times, a new player can step in and compensate
for the loss of the player that they are replacing. But sometimes that is not
possible regardless of how great the new guy is. How well a new player fits in
really depends on the new player. Is he going to buy into what the team is
doing? Is he willing to fill the role that he has been brought in for? It takes
all types to make a team successful and there is room for many personalities.
Football players quickly learn that player movement and roster instability are part
and parcel of the game, or business, in which we participate. One has to deal
with these changes as anyone else would in their own line of work. Sometimes it
is fairly easy, while other times it is much more difficult. And, with the loss
of some teammates, one is never quite the same.
I appreciate the feedback I receive from many of you in
regards to Rails from the Rails. In an effort to hear back from more of you,
here is an email you can send comments to: football@judestjohn.ca. I hope to hear
from you.
Last Stop: Friendship
is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather
it is one of those things that give value to survival. ~C.S. Lewis