It’s a job he’s held professionally for 13 years, wearing a green and gold No. 31 jersey for the only club he’s ever belonged to and helped earn its 14th and most recent title while playing out of the only field he’s ever called home.
By Gerry Moddejonge
Mar 14, 2021
After more than 200 Canadian Football League games, one Grey Cup championship and countless friendships and memories made over the years, Calvin McCarty is closing the book on his playing career.
As of the 14th day of the third month of this year — a date that holds numerical significance — he is no longer a football player.
It’s a job he’s held professionally for 13 years, wearing a green and gold No. 31 jersey for the only club he’s ever belonged to and helped earn its 14th and most recent title while playing out of the only field he’s ever called home, Commonwealth Stadium.
And there would have been a 14th season too, were it not for global forces stepping in and interrupting the process that saw McCarty enter free agency for the first and only time ahead of a 2020 season cancelled by COVID-19.
Instead, he began and ended it all in the same colours.
And, just like that, he goes from being an elder statesman – in sports chronology – of the Edmonton locker-room, to a young man in his mid-30s, looking to transition a career built upon the strong foundation formed through football. And while there will be plenty of time to discover what the future holds, this is a day to look back on the kind of career that is rare in professional sports. And, in a time when one-year contracts are becoming the norm, may never be seen in the CFL again.
Some of it was glory. Most of it was guts. But in the end, every last bit of it was heartfelt.
His humble beginnings were the mirror opposite of a pro career anchored entirely in one place.
Even before a nomadic college career that began at Boise State and ended in Western Washington — with a stop in between at Reedly College, where he won a Central Valley Conference championship on the gridiron while also playing baseball — McCarty had grown up with different family members on both sides of the border.
In Grade 1, he went to live with his aunt and uncle on an army base in Alabama.
“They’re the ones that signed me up for football my first year, so I got a chance to play on an army-base football team,” McCarty recalled. “But the thing about this story is I didn’t actually get to play, I practised. I was a big kid, I’ve got a T-ball card, I was almost five feet and 110 pounds in first grade.
“I had to bring my birth certificate to my T-ball games. This is in Daleville, Ala. Small town.”
Unfortunately, contact football wasn’t allowed until Grade 3.
“I didn’t know that until game day when they checked my birth certificate. The bus left me there and they called my aunt, she had to come pick me up,” he said. “I remember sitting there, crying. I wanted to play.
“And that was really the only time I’ve ever been cut from a team. I didn’t ever want to miss the bus from that point on.”
He made a few stops along the way, moving back to Oklahoma with his mom where he continued playing before venturing north to live with his dad in Surrey, B.C., at age 11.
“It was time for me to go live with my dad and become a man, basically, is what you could say,” McCarty said, not realizing the impact the move would end up having on his football career. “It was tough. It was an adjustment for me. I came up here and was kind of an angry kid and ran into some trouble early.
“I lashed out, but football was kind of my way to unleash some of those frustrations.”
Putting his focus on the Canadian gridiron this time, McCarty found success at each and every level rising up through the ranks, beginning with a North Surrey minor football provincial championship and another to follow in Grade 8 with St. Thomas More in Burnaby, B.C. All the while racking up too many touchdowns to count.
In Grade 9, he skipped right over junior varsity and helped the senior football team earn back-to-back provincial titles on the way to becoming the youngest MVP of the championship game in B.C.’s history in his Grade 10 year.
Fellow running back Jon Cornish was on that team. Both entered the CFL in 2007. Cornish’s lengthy pro career ended in 2015 …
“Obviously, I feel like I could still play,” said McCarty, who lives in Edmonton with his wife, Marissa, and their eight-year-old daughter, Anya Cruz. “I think I’m going to always feel like that until I die.
“But just weighing everything and looking at everything, my daughter’s getting big and I’ve still got relatively good health for playing over 200 games. And I would eventually like to stay involved. But, for now, I think it’s just the best decision for everybody.”
And one the entire outside world appeared to be pointing to over these past 12 months.
“It’s really time to move on. With last year and this year and the question marks, I’m content with where I’m at in my career,” said McCarty, whose only real downtime was a broken leg in college. “I’ve played 13-plus years with one scar. I’ve still got a relatively good head on my shoulders, no knee surgeries.
“Eventually, I’d like to be fortunate enough to get into coaching and scouting and potentially be a GM one day. I want to stay involved in the game somehow, I just think it’s time to take that step for myself and my family.”
Football doesn’t get any easier to walk away from 203 games later, even after the achievements of sipping victory from the Grey Cup and biting into his life’s ambition of making a difference over countless hours spent speaking to kids at schools.
“I’m still kind of processing it in my head though. It’s tough, man,” McCarty said. “Being able to win the 14th (Grey Cup) was one of my greatest memories as a (player).”
Becoming a pro athlete is challenging enough, let alone one who plays so long in a sport where three years outstrips the average playing career.
“To be the one per cent of the one per cent, I never imagined it. I always wanted to play the game as a kid since I was six,” he said. “I always wanted to play football. I didn’t know to what extent. I remember a lot of people saying, ‘You can’t do it. What else do you want to do?’ It’s all I really wanted to do. For me, I always want to do it until the wheels fall off.
“The wheels are still on. But that was my mentality as a kid, I wanted to leave an impact on others. My life wasn’t always easy. But football was that outlet for me and I just wanted to help be that outlet for others playing the game the right way.”
Versatility certainly played an enduring factor.
Or, is it ‘endearing’?
“I really enjoyed playing with Calvin. He was a unique player because he was so multi-skilled,” said future Canadian Football Hall-of-Fame shoo-in Ricky Ray, whom McCarty once thought would have spent his entire career in Edmonton. “He was talented enough to play tailback, fullback, special teams and was a good receiver.
“His abilities gave us so many options, offensively.”
Fred Stamps was the one who got to know McCarty first.
“Me and Calvin were rookies together, we were roomies the first training camp, my first time being in Edmonton,” said the former receiver, who was a four-time CFL all-star. “The Swiss Army knife of the football team, man, he could do it all. And he had some crazy stickums on his hands. I’ll never forget his first touchdown, I think it was back in 2008, against Saskatchewan. Ricky threw a ball up the sideline, he kind of reached back and kind of just clamped the ball on the (defender’s) back with one hand and rode him to the end zone.
“Every team needs a Calvin McCarty, he’s going to get the job done. You can’t speak enough great things about the guy.”
Some of those things involve a word the club has decided not to call itself anymore, and for the purposes of this article, can be used to fill in the blanks.
“In my mindset, Cal defines The E___ Way. He defines the concept of BONE, the Brotherhood (of Nasty E___),” said former receiver and three-time CFL all-star Adarius Bowman, who was named to the CFL’s all-decade team in November. “The award showed up in the mail not too long ago, and I’m so grateful and thankful for it. He missed out on the awards because of the unique nature of what he does.
“Cal’s a guy that eats, sleeps and poops football. He’s my ultimate MVP.”
Not to mention a cornerstone of the locker-room, year over year.
“We won a Grey Cup and the next thing you know, two weeks later, our head coach is gone. A lot of things change,” Bowman said. “I had new offensive co-ordinators, I switched quarterbacks a few times, I had different groups of receivers, but the one thing that hadn’t was my guy, Calvin McCarty.
“He never changed. On the roster or in the character of guy he is.”
To the one who knew him the longest — every step of the way since first setting foot in Edmonton, in fact — it’s McCarty’s attitude that puts him over the top.
“Calvin had a Hall-of-Fame career without having Hall-of-Fame stats,” said former Edmonton equipment manager of 49 seasons, Dwayne Mandrusiak. “He played his balls off, he never bitched, he never complained. He took so much pride in being a special-teams player, he was the best one on our team for years.”
And the type of person who transcends the gridiron’s timeline.
“They talk about generational players, he’s an era player. He would have fit in in any era. That five-in-a-row team is like no team I’ve ever been on,” Mandrusiak said of Edmonton’s 1978-82 Grey Cup champions. “Calvin would have fit in there perfect, and there’s not a lot of guys I’d say that about. Calvin would be there, Jason Maas would be there, J.C. Sherritt — there’s a select few guys that would have fit that time frame.
“They’re losing a great guy in Calvin. Canadian kids don’t get enough credit for being leaders. The Ryan Kings; Chris Morris, when he played; Matt O’Donnell. And you don’t need to be screaming all the time. When Chris Morris would speak, everyone would listen. And Calvin had an amazing career. He’s going to be successful at whatever he does.”
It turns out McCarty isn’t leaving empty-handed, either. At least, once COVID-19 restrictions allow.
“I had his 200th game ball painted,” said Mandrusiak, whose basement walls are lined with Edmonton memorabilia that would rival most areas of the Canadian Football Museum. “The greatest part about it is I got to sit there and watch every one of those 200 games. And I had the best seat in the house for them.
“And you know what? You can’t replace those guys. They know it’s more than football. They’re great players and they don’t get credit for being great.
“I’m gonna miss him, man.”
VIA: https://edmontonsun.com/sports/football/cfl/ee-football/calvin-mccarty-retires-after-13-canadian-football-league-seasons-with-edmonton-football-club/wcm/03584115-3e22-478c-8aca-402606a6dcb3
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