Age is just a number for Roughriders QB Kevin Glenn

VERO BEACH, Fla. — Kevin Glenn got something of a vet day Wednesday at the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ mini-camp.

You could say that he has earned it.

“This is 17 years in,” the soon-to-be 38-year-old quarterback said, tongue in cheek, in reference to his lengthy CFL career. “Come on now. Do you really need to see me go half-skelly (a passing drill) for another day?

“I’m cool with it. It was just another way to get the younger guys some reps.”

Glenn used to be one of those younger guys. Now — following the recent retirements of players like Henry Burris, Randy Chevrier and Paul McCallum — Glenn is the CFL’s oldest player.

It’s a badge of honour for the Detroit product.

“I’m doing something that I love to do with guys who (because of their ages) could be my sons,” Glenn said with a chuckle after participating sparingly in Day 2 of the mini-camp at Historic Dodgertown. “That says a lot about the longevity of my career and the success that I’ve had playing this game.”

Glenn broke into the CFL in 2001, when he signed as a free agent with the Roughriders. The Illinois State product since has been a CFL nomad, making stops with six teams.

His rights also belonged briefly to two other clubs, meaning he has been a member of eight of the CFL’s nine teams. Only the Edmonton Eskimos have yet to have him on their roster.

He’s now set to embark on his third go-round with Saskatchewan, which is in the market for a new starting quarterback after trading Darian Durant to the Montreal Alouettes in the off-season.

Despite Vince Young’s résumé and the potential of other (younger) quarterbacks on Saskatchewan’s roster, Glenn appears to be the frontrunner for the No. 1 job.

That’s interesting, considering Saskatchewan’s current assistant vice-president of football operations and administration was in his third season as a Roughriders offensive lineman when Glenn joined the team in 2001.

“He’s not much different, which is great,” Jeremy O’Day said. “You’d think a guy who has had a lot of success would change, but he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s the same guy as when he got here …

“It’s not hard to evaluate Kevin. He’s an accurate quarterback. He’s super-smart and there’s a reason why he has played for so long. He’s not a 6-foot-3, prototypical quarterback that you see, so there have got to be intangibles that would make him last that long. He has done it over and over.”

Longevity obviously is a factor in Glenn’s career numbers — he’ll enter the 2017 season ranked seventh on the CFL’s all-time list with 48,782 passing yards, only 1,753 behind the legendary Ron Lancaster — but there’s also the knowledge he has gained over his time in the league. It’s unlikely that a defence has been created that Glenn hasn’t seen at some point in his career.

He also has a competitive fire that still burns. If it didn’t, he likely would have called it a career long ago.

“When you get up in age in this profession, you have to have that competitive bone in your body in order to continue — to get up every day to exercise, to put yourself in the right position,” Glenn said. “I’m getting older and these guys are getting younger.

“There’s a difference between a 38-year-old and a 22-year-old. I was once a 22-year-old, so I know. There is a difference as far as eating the right things and what you put in your body and how you go about your day.”

Glenn and his wife have two young children and their demands on his time affect how he prepares daily. Then again, he himself decided to change his off-season preparations after something of a revelation.

He no longer throws footballs over the winter.

“I’ve never had any shoulder injuries from throwing the ball, so to help that, I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll start doing this,’ ’’ Glenn said. “I talked to some people and they said, ‘Yeah, I think you’ve been throwing a football long enough that you won’t forget how to throw it.’

“It works out because I live in Michigan, so I don’t get a lot of chances to get outside with weather like this until April. It plays right into what I’m trying to do. I may toss the ball around with my son in the basement, but actually getting outside and throwing routes, I don’t do it until the end of March or the beginning of April.”

Thanks to the change, he has found that his arm doesn’t get tired in the second half of regular seasons. He also doesn’t have to ice his throwing shoulder as much after practices as he used to.

Glenn isn’t sure how much longer he’ll play, but he noted he doesn’t plan to leave anytime soon. His kids are eight years old (son Kaleb) and five (daughter Dylan) and Glenn soon won’t be able to leave home for camp as easily as he does now.

In the meantime, he’ll keep plugging away — and he’ll try to remain as calm and cool as the day he first walked into the Roughriders’ locker room in 2001.

“I started as a true freshman in high school and as a true freshman in college, so I was always the younger guy playing with older guys,” Glenn said when asked about his demeanor. “I had to have that maturity to be in the huddle and make the guys feel comfortable and think, ‘Hey, this guy knows what he’s doing.’

“Now I’m the older guy with all these younger guys and I have to give off the persona that I’m confident enough to still do this. We can joke about it, but you don’t typically get guys playing 17, 15 or even 12 years in the league. It’s a young man’s game, so you have to gain the guys’ respect. You have to say, ‘I may have been playing for 17 years, but I’m going to make a throw out here to show you that I still can do it.’ ’’