Training-camp time warp: Bombers legend Stegall turns back the clock

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It’s a good thing Milt Stegall doesn’t need a beauty sleep.

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Because the CFL legend was wide awake by 3 a.m. on Wednesday, the day of his “vanity project” — a one-day comeback as part of Winnipeg Blue Bombers rookie camp.

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“I’ve never been this nervous before a training camp before in my life,” Stegall said when it was all over. “And I don’t know why. It’s not like I’m trying to make the team. And if I get hurt, so what?”

Hours after getting out of bed, Canadian football’s all-time touchdown king was introducing himself to players less than half his age, telling them it had been 16 years since his last training camp.

“I don’t know if some guys understood,” head coach Mike O’Shea said.

Word got around, and soon the rookies were calling Stegall “OG”— the original gangster — a reference used to describe an exceptional talent.

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The 54-year-old sat in on the receivers meeting, but that wasn’t enough to convince some of them he was actually going to suit up for practice.

“I was talking to him earlier and I thought he was just joking around,” 23-year-old Aron Cruickshank said.

But there was Stegall at 10:30, running around on the brand new artificial turf along with more than 60 others, wearing his familiar No. 85 — and the wrong cleats.

Seems the vintage Nikes he wore when he scored four touchdowns in a game back in 2005 didn’t handle the new carpet all that well.

“I was slipping too much,” Stegall said. “I didn’t want to come out here and embarrass myself.”

After some 25 minutes of stretching and standing around, the real “action” began.

A 25-yard warmup sprint drew cheers from some 100 fans in the stands, more than a handful of them wearing old Stegall jerseys.

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“I just wanted to see what a 54-year-old that always brags about staying in shape can do,” one of them, 69-year-old Les Kovacs, said. “Certainly better than I would have done at 54. One of the handsomest men in football, right?”

Some agility drills followed, and eventually Stegall faced the one thing he figured he’d ace, even at his age: The 300-yard shuttle run.

“This was my thing,” he said. “I’m not going to come in first, but I’m not going to be nowhere near last.”

He came in fifth or sixth among some 20 receivers.

“He was crushing everybody,” a somewhat sheepish 25-year-old Kody Case said.

It wasn’t just the kids who were impressed.

“It was wild,” veteran quarterback Zach Collaros said. “It’s unbelievable. His willingness to do it is impressive, too. It was cool to watch him running around. His footwork is still there. I’m sure he’s not as fast as he once was, although he was pretty impressive on those 300-yard shuttles.”

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Earlier, Collaros got a chance to bend Stegall’s ear about how the Hall of Famer and quarterback Khari Jones would exploit certain defences in their heyday.

Eventually, No. 8 connected with No. 85 on a pass, too, as did backup quarterback Chris Streveler.

Talk about a time warp.

“I’ve never seen that guy before,” Streveler said, laughing. “That was impressive. To just be out there running around … the 300 shuttles we did to the 25 and back, that will drain the legs out. For him to be out here at 54 and even make it through a practice, credit to him.”

This wasn’t a practice taken from the pages of Stegall’s first Winnipeg training camp, though, when the late Cal Murphy had players smashing into each other every day, twice a day.

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But Stegall was one of the very few to actually take a bit of a hit, when defensive back Demetries Ford, a 23-year-old fresh out of Arizona State University, broke up a pass to him.

Ford had been aware of the legend’s presence in camp, but claimed he didn’t know he was lined up against him on that particular curl route.

“I would have maybe let off a little bit,” he said.

Stegall wasn’t buying it.

“He knew he was going up against the greatest receiver in CFL history,” the legend said. “He was, ‘I can’t let this guy catch a pass on me.’ Now, if this was Milt Stegall back in the day and I see that DB sitting, I’m going by him. But this was Milt Stegall having to follow the rules … so I had to run the curl route.

“I wanted to go by him so bad. If that had been Khari or Kevin Glenn, who knows me, I’d have ran by.”

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Later in the practice, Stegall reached back into his little bag of smack-talk, telling the kid he let him break up the pass.

“I know you’re trying to make the team so I didn’t want to show you up,” is how he recalled it. “Just some good jokes, man. These guys are good guys.”

And the old guy had a good time, by rewinding it.

A football player again, even if just for one day.

His goal when he first walked onto the field Wednesday morning had been simple enough.

“Being able to walk off the field,” Stegall said. “Mission accomplished.”

pfriesen@postmedia.com

X: @friesensunmedia

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