THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL — There’s been playful bantering this week among the Montreal Alouettes receivers over who will catch Anthony Calvillo’s record 395th career touchdown pass.
It could come as early as Friday when the 2-0 Alouettes play host to Toronto, although the 1-1 Argonauts’ defence has yet to allow a passing TD this season.
Going into the season, Calvillo needed eight to tie the 394 amassed by Allen in his 23 CFL campaigns from 1985 to 2007. He got them in two games, including five in a victory Saturday in Saskatchewan.
That plus his 29 completions for 409 yards earned Calvillo the CFL offensive player of the week on Tuesday.
His prime target, Jamel Richardson, said he’d love to be the one to catch the record TD.
“We haven’t sat down yet to talk about that — I’ve got to see the game plan to see who is going to get that ball,” he said with a laugh. “But you know it’s going to be exciting to see him throw that touchdown this year. I hope I’m part of it.”
Perhaps the one who deserves most to make the catch is Ben Cahoon, but the glue-fingered slotback who was Calvillo’s target of choice for more than a decade retired in the off-season and is now coaching back home in Utah.
The league’s all-time receptions leader will be in the stadium on Friday night, but only to be honoured before the game.
The team will save the retirement of Cahoon’s No. 86 for another night, however. But when his name and number go up at Percival Molson Stadium, it is almost certain to be followed not long after by Calvillo’s No. 13
With 51 completions this season, Calvillo’s career total of 5,091 is now only 67 short of Allen’s record. That should fall within three or four games.
But the big record is career passing yards, which is also within reach if Calvillo, who turns 39 on Aug. 23, can stay healthy.
His 731 yards through two games leaves him 3,489 short of Allen’s 72,381, while he regularly throws for more than 4,500 in a season.
“Everything that I’ve been able to accomplish with my teammates here has been special,” said Calvillo. “The (three) Grey Cups, the wins and, on a personal note, the touchdown passes, the yards, if that ever comes.
“When I look back at it, they’re going to be fantastic. They just are. But in the moment, I’m not going to let that absorb my train of thought.”
Calvillo once felt that records were to be cherished after retirement, but his thinking changed after both he and his wife survived cancer scares.
In 2007, the three-time CFL outstanding player took the end of the season off to be with his wife Alexia as she successfully battled a lymphoma in her abdomen. After leading Montreal to its second straight Grey Cup in November, Calvillo announced that he took would need surgery to remove a cancerous thyroid gland.
The off-season operation went smoothly and it quite clearly has had no ill-effect on his game, especially his throwing arm.
He savours the success earned in his 18-year career with his family and close friends, but says he doesn’t want to give the impression of boasting in public.
“I’m trying to appreciate it now,” he said. “I think that’s what I’ve learned with all that’s gone on with my wife and myself — I don’t want to wait until my career’s over to enjoy it.
“I don’t want to wait until the end of my career to look back and think ‘those things we’ve accomplished are amazing feats. Those were fantastic.’ But those are things I just share with my family.”
When Calvillo came into the CFL in 1994 with the defunct Las Vegas Posse, he hoped to match the feats of the top quarterbacks like Doug Flutie and Matt Dunnigan. He moved to Hamilton for three seasons, where he was haunted by interceptions, but his play blossomed when he moved to Montreal in 1998 and spent two years as understudy to Tracy Ham.
“The difference between me and a lot of quarterbacks is I’ve been able to be consistent,” said Calvillo, who has given up only one interception this season. “I learned a couple of things over the years: One, you have to protect yourself. As a quarterback, you have to feel that you have a great chance to help your team win.
“Two, you have to protect the ball. You could have a crappy game, but if you don’t turn the ball over you’ll have a chance to win. I take a lot of pride in that and it’s helped me and the team be consistent over the years and that’s the difference.”
It has also helped that the Alouettes have been consistently strong since the club returned to Montreal in 1996 after a 10-year hiatus.
Some feel Calvillo is getting better as he gets older, and that if he had been as sharp a decade ago he may have been scooped up an NFL club.
Coach Marc Trestman, who spent decades in the NFL before joining Montreal in 2008, has no doubt he is good enough.
“Anthony’s as good a quarterback as I’ve ever been around or ever seen, in all aspects,” said Trestman, who coached Bernie Kosar and Rich Gannon among other NFL pivots. “If his journey had taken him south of the border I think he would have been just as successful as he was in Canada.”
Richardson didn’t finish the Saskatchewan game and was on crutches with a sore knee the next day, but looks to have recovered and is expected to play. The same for running back Brandon Whitaker, who left the game with a suspected concussion.
