BY: WILLIE PILE
In 2007, when I originally told my friends and family that I would be applying my football skills north of the border in the CFL, the usual questions asked of me were: where would I be playing, when does the season run, how much are they paying you, and what is the work week like? While the answers to the first three are clear cut; Toronto, June through November, and “enough”, the last question requires a further understanding of the CFL’s bylaws.
In the CFL, all players are part of a Union known as the CFLPA (Canadian Football League Players Association), which has represented the interests of the athletes at league meetings and other functions since 1965. Along with our President Stu Laird, the leadership group within the CFLPA is formed by each CFL team selecting two player representatives, at the beginning of the regular season, who act as the liaisons for that specific team. During the collective bargaining process, in which the CFLPA and CFL establish the bylaws that govern the league, several factors are taken into account to come up with a reasonable and fair work week.
Through the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), most recently of 2006, the CFL adopted the four and a half hour work day where each team can meet and practice under the watchful eyes of the coaching staff. In addition, the CBA set up two distinct windows of practice times, morning practices beginning anytime between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. and afternoon practices beginning anytime between 1:30 and 4 pm., from which each team votes on when they’d like to practice. It is believed that these options were structured with the mind-set to allow the CFL athlete to pursue interests outside of football in preparation for life after the sport, which is very important considering football careers don’t last forever.
While some athletes take full advantage of the league rules and are able to set up their post-football career, the reality of the CFL work week is that every minute counts!
Three weeks of training camp, two preseason games, and four hours 30 minutes of supervised preparation per day means that efficient meetings and practices are a must. With practice and meetings moving a brisk pace, disciplined study habits have to be formed in order to succeed in this league.
Most guys realize that to be a truly successful team, we have to get together outside of the coaches’ presence to understand our opponent game plan for the week, which can occur at a players’ home, at the facility, or over dinner. The French term for this is “lagniappe”, meaning a little extra.
The work week for a typical Saturday game to a Saturday night home game, would include a break down of the previous game’s film on Sunday and a day off on Monday to allow our bodies to recover from the previous game. Tuesday would constitute Day 1 of preparation, Wednesday would be Day 2, Thursday is Day 3, Friday would be a walk through/review, and Saturday would be the game.
If the game is on the road, Days 1-3 would remain the same and Friday would be a travel day, where we’d conduct a walk through at the opponents’ stadium. So if you do the math, that’s roughly 18 hours per week of supervised preparation for a CFL game that consists of many scenarios within the areas offense, defense, and special teams that we all have to be ready for.
Those 18 hours, however, don’t even include the individual strength and conditioning regimen that CFL players must perform to keep their bodies fit for the rigors of an 18 game regular season and hopefully, a two or three-game postseason.
Each game in the CFL is an explosion of hard work and preparation, that we are honored to share with our fans. However, the work that leads up to game day often goes unnoticed and is where championship teams are made. Whether in sport or in life, CFL athletes are living proof that “every minute counts!”