Lemar Durant in action against the Ottawa Redblacks in the 106th Grey Cup in November of 2018.
It was when he first arrived at the BC Lions’ practice headquarters and was given a tour by boyhood idol Geroy Simon that it first sunk in for Lemar Durant. The athletic receiver was officially home. As a young kid watching Geroy “Superman” Simon do his thing in an era where BC Place was the spot to be, Durant knew he would one day want to follow in the superstar’s footsteps.
“He was huge. Whenever I went to watch one of the games it seemed like he was the guy doing everything,” recalled the Vancouver native.
“Playing receiver at a young age, that was a guy I looked up to. I wanted to be like him. Now to get the opportunity to come and be a BC Lion and he was actually talking to me, showing interest in me and telling me he was a guy that looked at me even when I was in high school, it means a lot to me. I’m happy to have a guy like that around.”
Nobody is anticipating Durant will re-write Geroy’s record book, but the addition of the Centennial High School grad comes with some intrigue. He showed his true potential by earning Grey Cup Most Valuable Canadian honours after helping Calgary take down Ottawa in the championship game in November. It perhaps served as some poetic justice for Durant after knee reconstruction surgery ended a breakout 2017 season where he had recorded 22 catches and 322 yards in just seven games.
“That was huge. It was a major relief,” said Duran of his fairytale ending in Cowtown.
“Going there (Grey Cup game) the two years prior and losing games that we felt like we should have won and last year pulling it off, because I think it was the year we faced the most adversity, to be able to come through, get that win and for me to be able to have that good performance, it felt good ending the season like that especially coming off the injury the previous year.”
Lemar Durant collecting Grey Cup Most Valuable Canadian Honours after Calgary defeated Ottawa 27-16 in the 2018 championship game. PHOTO: Nathan Denette, The Canadian Press.
Grey Cup heroics aside, there are indeed many observers who feel Durant has yet to show his true potential. That’s what GM Ed Hervey, Simon and the entire brass had in mind when they pursued him in the opening hours of free agent frenzy as a new target for quarterback Mike Reilly.
“Bringing in Lemar Durant, for us, again we felt like was an upgrade at the position. He’s young, he’s big, he’s fast and we believe he has tremendous upside,” stated Hervey.
“I think he displayed those things in bits and pieces throughout his career but in the Grey Cup, he showed a flash we can definitely use on our football team. We wanted to get bigger at wideout and more physical. Lamar definitely brings that to us.”
Durant’s path to the pros wasn’t always easy. He parlayed his high school success to a scholarship at Nevada where his teammates included an athletic quarterback named Colin Kaepernick. However, injuries derailed his chances of any real playing time. Still, he looks back on that experience as a positive one.
Having that jump and going straight into a program that had many NFL prospects, I feel like that was a huge thing for me. Playing with a quarterback and person like Kaepernick was huge to have at a young age and it helped me mature really early as a player. It’s cool to have teammates to play with,” said Durant.
From there, Durant came home to SFU and was a two-time Great Northwest Athletic Conference All-Star. In 2012, he tied a conference single-season record with 93 receptions. The Stampeders then came calling in round two (18th overall) of the 2015 draft. He ended his Stampeders tenure with 102 catches for 1,280 yards and eight touchdowns in 51 regular season games.
Lemar Durant scored his second and third career touchdowns in a victory over the Lions at BC Place on November 7th/2015. PHOTO: Jonathan Hayward, The Canadian Press.
With the additions of Durant, Duron Carter and Joshua Stanford combined with returnees Bryan Burnham and Shaq Johnson, the 2019 offence has all the makings of a potent aerial attack. The mention of Reilly only perks Durant up even more.
“That’s huge. I was telling some other people that Mike Reilly has been one of the best quarterbacks in the league, if not the best, year in and year out,” boasted Durant.
“Just the way he plays the game; his grit, his toughness, we know he has all of the intangibles; the deep ball, the arm strength, just everything. I think it’s just his effort and the way he plays the game that gets everyone around him wanting to play at the highest level for him.”
And after going through practices against DeVone Claybrooks’ defences in Calgary every day, being reunited with the Lions’ new sideline boss is only another positive to being back home.
“DeVone is a real players’ coach. You want to play well for him because he brings the best out of players,” explained Durant.
He’s one of those guys that will joke around with you but when it’s time to get serious you know when he flips that switch and you got to be serious. I feel like he has the best of both worlds, the players get along with him and I think him being the head coach is going to be good for the organization.”
And now his new squad hopes the championship experience pays massive dividends.