CALGARY — Finally, after all these seasons and last year's heartache, Anthony Calvillo is feeling the love.
The game he has played for most of his life has taken on a new excitement. Accolades have poured in by the week. Almost every time he throws a football, wonderful things happen. Catches are made. Touchdowns are scored; records broken.
Maybe it has to do with the Montreal Alouettes being so good that there isn't a team in the CFL East capable of challenging them. Maybe it's because Montreal's offence has been revitalized with top receivers, a prized running back and a fresh game plan.
Most likely, Calvillo's resurgence has everything to do with him playing for the sheer enjoyment of it. When you've gone eyeball to eyeball with retirement, when your wife has fought against cancer with every fibre of her being and won, getting to play football again isn't an obligation or a means to an end. It's a release; a joy – and Calvillo, at 36, is loving every minute of it.
“There was a week there when I wasn't sure I'd come back,” Calvillo said of his decision to leave the Alouettes last October to be with his ailing wife, Alexia Kontolemos. “I've had people talk and I've heard about people who have gone though cancer but when it hits home, it opens your eyes, especially to see your wife struggle for her life, especially when you have two young kids at home.”
Calvillo's wife is doing well now, having undergone her final treatment for the B-cell lymphoma that invaded her lymph glands and lymph nodes. As for Calvillo, it's as if the weight of the world has been taken off his shoulders.
As he said repeatedly yesterday in Calgary, where tonight the Als face the Stampeders, “I know how close I was to not coming back, and that makes football a lot more fun.”
Calvillo is having the kind of season that would make a tackling dummy smile. In June, he surpassed Danny McManus for second-place in career passing yards.
In July, he became the fourth quarterback in CFL history to record 300 touchdown passes. In August, he became the second quarterback in league history to complete 4,000 career passes.
So far, Calvillo has completed 67.7 per cent of his throws for 3,248 yards and a league best 24 touchdowns (with only five interceptions). If he stays hot and happy, Calvillo could pass for more than 40 touchdowns, a career best in a career he has only now allowed himself to reflect upon.
“In the past, I wouldn't have thought about it,” Calvillo said of his run on the CFL record book. “I would have said, ‘I'll think about that later when the season's over.' But to have that happen week in and week out, it blows me away. It keeps me humble.”
Calvillo's humility has never been questioned. His abilities, however, have been critiqued to the point where his weaknesses (the fact he's not a running threat) are often mentioned ahead of his strengths (his quick mind and strong arm). It has gotten to the point where Calvillo's name is barely mentioned when CFL fans and media debate the greatest quarterbacks in history.
But this summer as the records fall and the Alouettes soar, the guy who played his first CFL game as a member of the one-season-and-out Las Vegas Posse is garnering a wealth of praise and revelling in the moment.
“When I came into the league, Doug Flutie, Matt Dunigan, Tracy Ham, David Archer, those were the elite quarterbacks. I wanted to get to that level,” Calvillo said “I feel I'm at that level now. … It's hard to get there, but it's harder to stay there.”
Calvillo's supporters have never doubted his worth as a quarterback. Calgary receiver Jeremaine Copeland, who played in Montreal, said of his former passer, “He's a Hall of Famer.” Calgary defensive co-ordinator Chris Jones, who spent six seasons in Montreal, said of Calvillo, “I sure wish he'd get old in a hurry … He's putting up such great numbers I assume he's got three, four years left in him.”
However many games Calvillo has left in a Montreal jersey is not something he's worrying about. The plan is to enjoy the time he has by going around the league and its cities and soaking up the experiences he had begun to shut himself off from.
“I'm basically year to year now,” he explained. “There are memories I don't want to forget – being with the guys in the locker room, talking to the media. It's not going to last forever.”
He's just here for the appreciation, his and ours.
