DON LANDRY – Argonauts.ca Columnist
TORONTO – It was a question born of good intentions, really it was.
However, when Argos’ receiver and return man Chad Owens is asked how much longer he can put his body through the rigours of hauling back punts and kicks AND getting blasted in traffic after making catches, his brow furrows as though he might be insulted.
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“Shoot, it’s football, that’s the game,” he says. Suddenly I feel like I’ve jumped offside and assure him it’s not about ability, it’s just plainly about the wear and tear a body can take. Now he seems to spy me with a puzzled look, as though the idea of taking the odd punt off is an unknown concept.
That’s the world of Chad Owens. A million miles an hour or you’re standing still.
The notion of Owens having a less involved role when it comes to returns is not a new one. Nor is it a question of productivity. Three straight seasons of 3,000 plus all-purpose yards, with a single season record of 3,862 in 2012, and a most outstanding player award. For all we know, the ceiling has not been met. You get the sense that Owens believes that.
No, this question has more to do with the amount of punishment a body can take.
Asked during training camp about the pounding his prized receiver takes, head coach Scott Milanovich admitted the team had a ‘plan B’ ready to go should Owens’ durability start to erode from the crushing workload. But, even the coach seemed to feel that day was somewhere off in the distance, with no real tangible timeline to report.
‘Plan B’ at this time would come in the form former Montreal Alouette Trent Guy, dutifully filling a role on the Argonaut practice roster. With the stable of receivers the Argos have in 2013, it’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t Guy’s electric kick return skills that made him most appealing.
Should the Argos find a spot for Guy on the game day roster and have him spell Owens on kicks? It would still give Owens the thrill of the punt return and keep him just that much fresher as games wear on. Fewer collisions. A little time to catch an even bigger breath. Might help make the sky the limit when it comes to trying to nab a career best in receiving yardage.
Doesn’t matter. “The Flyin’ Hawaiian” will have none of that talk.
“As long as I’m playing football I’m gonna want to do it all, know what I’m saying?” He’s firm in that, strongly – very strongly – indicating that it won’t be he who pulls the ‘chute on all that activity.
“I’m pretty sure Scott will pull me into the office and talk to me about it and lay it out there. For right now, I’m gonna do as much as I can when I get an opportunity to,” he said.
If you’re expecting a change of heart from Owens on that front, do not hold your breath. He is an ultimate adrenaline junkie and not one to shy away from the rough stuff, of course. He’s been belted around something fierce in his first two games this year, but come through the fire.
Last season, he suffered a dislocated left thumb during an October game against Saskatchewan and wore a series of casts on that thumb right through the Grey Cup Game. Never once did he publicly pipe up about it, even when some were wondering why he’d returned to an early season routine of fumble-itis. “I have some stiffness,” he said of the thumb, “but, it’s fine. I can catch, I can hold the ball in both hands now. I don’t even think about it.”
If you’re alarmed because – it may seem – that Owens is staying down a little longer after the early season belts he’s taken, don’t be, he says. Just his 31 year old chassis reacquainting itself with the violent collisions of the sport, after an intense training camp.
“I think there’s a time where your body transitions into the new season. It takes some time to get into the routine. Once it gets into that routine, it’ll iron itself out.”
Asked if he can ever envision a long – off point in the road where he watches the return game from the bench, Owens illustrates that the road, itself, may not exist at all in his mind.
“I pray and hope that point never comes, where I’ve got to eliminate those things.”
If it ever does, it won’t be because the strains of being a ‘Mr. Everything’ have taken their toll, he insists.
“If I get nicked up or there maybe comes a point where I can’t go, I can’t play, I don’t think it’s because of the load, it’s just because it’s football,” he said.
Argos legend Nick Volpe certainly has stories to tell. Beyond his participation in the historic “Mud Bowl” of 1950, the impossibly spry 86 year old was flashing his 2012 Grey Cup ring around at practice this week, wowing some visitors from overseas. Talk turned to Toronto’s record-breaking rain storm of this past Monday. When it was mentioned that the total rainfall actually bested the one-day onslaught of Hurricane Hazel in 1954, Volpe added another colourful chapter to his personal book of tales.
Turns out he coached a team of Port Credit high schoolers while Hazel was blasting Toronto.
“It hadn’t really unloaded but it was windy and normally, I don’t think they’d play it today. But in those days, you’d play it whenever you could,” he laughed.
As the leading edge of the famed hurricane was bearing down on Toronto, whipping it with high winds and heavy rains, Volpe had his troops out there battling both Hazel and Brampton High School.
“We ended up getting six singles and we beat ’em six – nothing,” he said with another hearty chuckle. “Yeah, six singles!”
It was absolutely impossible to throw the ball against wind, Volpe says, as it gusted, he figures, up to 60 or 70 kilometres an hour.
“You couldn’t throw against it and you couldn’t kick (punt) against it,” he said, adding that the heavy rain might have meant receivers wouldn’t be able to track an incoming pass anyway.
“It was unbelievable. You couldn’t see very much. I think we were crazy to play but nevertheless….”
He laughed again and flashed that devilish grin of his. “Great experience, though.”