Montreal Alouettes' quarterback Anthony Calvillo in Montreal on Nov. 14, 2011.
At 39, Anthony Calvillo isn't finished yet.
He wants to win another Grey Cup with the Montreal Alouettes. (He's won three titles with the club, but he's lost five and he'd like to even up the score a little.) If that championship season doesn't happen in 2012, will he be tempted to continue?
The long-time CFL quarterback can't answer that question right now.
"For the past three years, it's really been year-to-year and that's really been the way I've approached it," he said Wednesday before the Conn Smythe Sports Celebrities dinner and auction in Toronto. "Once this [2012]season is over, I will evaluate at the end of the season and go from there."
He's well-aware of chatter about how he's reaching the end of his career, that perhaps he doesn't run as fast as he used to, don't release the ball quite as soon – and that he's now a member of that group called, "those people of a certain age."
"I'm still pretty good at this," said all-time professional football passing leader (73,412 yards).
He's not going to listen to the naysayers. "I'm going to retire when I think it's time."
Calvillo is in a good place, something he never envisaged when he grew up in Los Angeles, impressive even then with his team at La Puente High School, and then with Utah State University, where he set records. Still, when NFL scouts came looking and they didn't look at him, Calvillo wasn't surprised or bothered. He was a "skinny little Mexican kid" standing 6 foot 1, not NFL material.
"I didn't know anything about the Canadian Football League growing up," Calvillo said. His plan, when he finished college, was to return home to Los Angeles to coach and teach.
But one year of an ill-fated CFL expansion to Las Vegas changed everything.
Calvillo ended up in a city where the population doesn't speak his language. He still doesn't speak French, but after spending 14 seasons in Quebec, he's finally starting to learn. His wife, Alexia, speaks four languages and is from Montreal. Whenever the language got a little difficult, Calvillo would always defer to her.
But now his youngest daughter is in a French immersion school, and Calvillo would like to be able to join his family when homework is being done.
"I can sit in with them now, and I'm starting at the beginning," Calvillo said. "Now I think it's important for me to do this, just because I don't want my daughter and my wife talking behind my back."
The Calvillo family has been through a lot together, with the quarterback taking a leave of absence during the 2008 season, when Alexia fell ill with lymphoma. Then, after the 2010 Grey Cup, Calvillo dropped a bomb when he announced he had thyroid cancer.
Now, Calvillo says they are both healthy. By October, if all goes well, Alexia will be considered cancer-free, heading for the five-year mark. Calvillo says he has routine checkups and last month, he already started his training for the 2012 season.
"Everything is on target," he said.
There will be lots of changes this year on the Alouettes team, he said, but "we always feel that when we step on that field, we have a chance to compete. And this year is not going to be any different."