Rob Bagg keeps soldiering on

SASKATOON — Rob Bagg is more than happy to be living a cliché.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ veteran receiver made it through another day of training camp Thursday — the 12^th camp of his CFL career. After all these years, the 33-year-old product of Kingston, Ont., has learned to take training camp (wait for it!) one day at a time.

“I really just break it down into days,” Bagg said. “If you look at the training-camp schedule in its entirety, you’re going to just mentally crush yourself. Your body is going to feel so (badly) when you look at that schedule that you don’t see a way how you’re going to make it through.

“Every day, I cross each period off and then try to make it through the next period. I try not to look ahead. In my head, I’m always like, ‘Today is hump day,’ and you try to get through that day and go on to tomorrow.

“If you start thinking of camp in its entirety, it’s hard not to mentally think you need to stop for a minute to get your legs back.”

Bagg joined the Roughriders as an undrafted free agent in 2007. He made the team out of training camp that season, but opted to return to Queen’s University for his final season of eligibility.

He came back in 2008 and again cracked the roster — and he has been a fixture in Green and White ever since.

That has meant a lot of days in training camps and a lot of sore muscles. Aside from sharing his one-day-at-a-time mentality with his teammates over the years, Bagg also has tried to make workouts as enjoyable as possible for himself and his cohorts.

“I just try to bring a smile,” he said. “Honestly, you’d be surprised how that works. When BG (Bakari Grant) or DC (Duron Carter) or Naaman (Roosevelt) comes in in the first period and has that energy or that smile and they’re having fun, it’s contagious.

“The more that you can be someone who’s out there and who recognizes what they’re doing — playing football — and just enjoy it, the more you smile. And the more you smile, the less you think about how much your legs hurt.”

Bagg has dealt with more than just tired legs during his Roughriders career.

In 2010, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He injured the same ligament prior to the 2011 season and missed the entire campaign. Then he tore the ACL in his right knee just three games into the 2012 season.

But he hasn’t played fewer than 17 games in any regular season since, relying on rigorous off-season workouts to prepare himself for training camp and then surviving the daily grind to make it to the season.

Others could learn a thing or two from him.

“Most of the guys here don’t know who you are, at least at first, but once they get to know you and they find out you’ve been here a long time, that’s what I take pride in,” Bagg said. “If you’re the type of guy who works, I don’t think a young guy can watch that and not think, ‘He’s old as hell and he’s got to be as sore as hell, but he’s still trying so I’d better try, too.’ ”

As with any player, training camp allows Bagg to get back to the basics and refine the skills he’ll need to use during the regular season. That, he said, “is a really fun process.”

It’s not that fun when receivers pull up lame or are released, which raises the numbers of repetitions for the remaining pass-catchers. Those players then have to band together to make sure they stay healthy enough to get through camp.

Bagg has seen former teammates like Chris Getzlaf and Darian Durant retire in recent months, but he’s not ready for that.

“It’s so fun,” he said when asked why he’s preparing for another season. “This is probably the worst part of the season. We’ve got great fans, so there are people who will get you excited by clapping for you in practice, but in essence, you’re just working so that you can shine on game day.

“Once you put in all this work, that gratification of knowing you made it through and that you have another opportunity to put on the Rider jersey is a tremendous feeling. I obviously know it’s not going to last forever, but it’s the type of feeling you want to (linger).”

Bagg doesn’t know how long he can keep going — “The last three years, I’ve been saying, ‘One year at a time,’ ” he said, offering up another cliché — but he’ll keep putting in the work. It all depends on how his body responds.

“I had a really good off-season this year, so it would be easy for me to say that I’d like to play four more years,” he said. “But we’ve got a long six months ahead of us. I appreciate the violence in the game as well as how great the guys coming up are.

“You’ve got to take advantage of your moment and don’t expect it to last forever because the reality is that it won’t.”

Bagg has caught 364 passes for 4,705 yards and 24 touchdowns in 139 career regular-season games with the Roughriders. He’s by far the longest-serving member of the current team — offensive linemen Brendon LaBatte and Dan Clark are next at seven seasons — and he takes pride in that.

He’s also intrigued that he has outlasted all but two of the 47 players who were selected in the 2007 draft, just by taking it one day at a time.

“That’s pretty cool as a guy who went undrafted,” Bagg said. “Maybe in some ways I’ve proved my point.”