Brett Lauther has a superb support system

Jordan Lauther can take the credit for his older brother’s success so far with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

You see, Jordan is the finance manager at a car dealership in Langley, B.C., and … well, let’s let him tell it.

“If football wasn’t going to work out for him this year, Brett was going to come work for me,” Jordan, 25, says from Langley. “He knew this was his last chance or he’d be working for his little brother — and he wouldn’t like me bossing him around all day.”

Suitably motivated, Brett Lauther has had a stellar season to date with the CFL’s Roughriders.

The 27-year-old kicker from Truro, N.S., has connected on 19 of 21 field-goal attempts — his 90.5-per-cent success rate is third-best in the league in 2018 — and he leads all kickers with two field goals from 50-plus yards, including a league-best 56-yarder.

His work in place of injured veteran Tyler Crapigna has been a revelation for the Roughriders this season.

Brett notes that he probably would have joined Jordan at the dealership if football didn’t work out in 2018, primarily because Jordan reports the money is good. But Brett agrees that the working arrangement would have been tough to handle.

“That was half the reason why I thought about not going out there,” he says with a laugh. “I was like, ‘I’m not having him tell me what to do when he has less than half the brain cells in his head that I have.’ ”

The brothers are joking, of course. But in reality, Jordan and other members of Brett’s family are among those who legitimately can say they played a role in Brett’s successful first season in Saskatchewan.

Over the previous four years, friends and loved ones offered their support, their encouragement and even their sweat to help him achieve his goal.

“It has been pretty surreal to get to this point,” Lauther says. “At the same time, I know what it feels like to miss kicks in this league, to be struggling and to feel like you’re on your own at the bottom. It always feels good to have support from friends and family.”

•••

Brett’s CFL career began in 2013, when he was selected by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the seventh round (53^rd overall) of the CFL draft out of Saint Mary’s University.

He played four games with Hamilton that season, making six of 10 field-goal attempts and going 10-for-10 on convert tries.

But Lauther didn’t play another regular-season game between Oct. 14, 2013 (his final contest with Hamilton) and June 15, 2018 (his first game with Saskatchewan).

He spent the 2014 season on Hamilton’s practice roster, but didn’t return to the Tiger-Cats in 2015. Nothing came along until the Roughriders added him to their practice roster in September of that year.

When the Roughriders acquired Crapigna from the Calgary Stampeders late in the 2015 regular season, Lauther was released.

What followed over the next few years was a tour of the CFL, featuring stops (some of which comprised only a workout) with the Toronto Argonauts, Montreal Alouettes, Ottawa Redblacks, Edmonton Eskimos and Roughriders.

“It was tough for him, but he knew he could (kick in the CFL),” Troy Lauther, Brett’s father, says from Truro. “I don’t know why he couldn’t get a shot for those four years. (Teams) kept saying no to him.

“He’d go for tryouts and when he’d come back, he’d say, ‘Dad, I don’t know what’s wrong. I kick better than the other guys and (the teams) always take somebody else.’ I said, ‘That’s football. I guess it’s who you know.’ ”

As tough as it was for Brett to understand, it was just as difficult for Troy.

“It’s hard to drop your son off at the airport to go to a tryout and then, a day later, you’re picking him up at the airport again and hearing that he didn’t make it,” Troy says. “I’d say, ‘Just stay positive, keep working at it and do what you’ve got to do.’

“The family and everybody else was here to support him. All you can do as a father is give him support and see what happens.”

•••

Troy played middle linebacker and running back in high school, so he had no experience with kicking. That didn’t stop him from helping in any way he could as Brett tried to make it in the CFL.

Every time Lauther didn’t stick with a team, he’d return to Nova Scotia — and he’d recruit friends and family to join him on the practice field.

“I’d hold for him or throw him the ball or snap it to him,” Troy says. “He’d use his brother (Jordan) or his sister (Brooklyn, who’s now 10 years old). She’d run into the field and bring the balls back for him. Or his brother would be out there shagging balls for him.

“(Brett) was living in Halifax for the last year and I’m in Truro, so he’d ask me if I wanted to come down and go to the field with him. On my day off (from working at a plastics plant), I’d drive down and he’d kick.”

Truro is an hour’s drive from Halifax. Troy never hesitated.

“You do whatever you’ve got to do for your kids,” he says. “He’s chasing his dream.”

That fact resonated with everyone from Lauther’s siblings to friends he has known for years to former teammates at Saint Mary’s. That’s why they helped him during his kicking sessions.

“This was always something he wanted and I knew he wanted it,” Jordan says when asked why he pitched in. “It was never a question if he could do it.

“He was the best university kicker there was and then he only got one kick at the can (with Hamilton). He saw guys who he was competitive with in university — or better than, in my opinion — getting second and third chances and he only got one. It just wasn’t time for him to quit and we all knew that.”

That said, Brett almost did quit.

When he wasn’t kicking or training, he worked in roofing for a bit and then spent a year and a half working as a server and bartender in Halifax. He also went to RCMP recruitment meetings and was ready to join the force if another CFL opportunity didn’t come along this off-season.

Then the Eskimos sent him a contract in December. He had hoped to hear from the Roughriders as well — and his patience eventually was rewarded. He signed with Saskatchewan for the third time in March.

In May, Lauther went to training camp in Saskatoon with a new attitude. He vowed to try to have fun while competing with Crapigna, content just to have another chance no matter how it went.

“Right up until we moved (to Mosaic Stadium after camp), I was joking around: ‘I’ve got 10 days left with you guys, so let’s have some fun,’ ” Lauther says, referring to Crapigna, punter-holder Josh Bartel and long-snapper Jorgen Hus. “That’s when I found out the team was opting to have Tyler go home and have surgery (on his kicking leg).

“I was still thinking, ‘They’re going to bring in another guy or something’s going to happen.’ Then they told me they were going to go with me to start the season. Since then, it has been a fun three months.”

•••

Lauther made his debut with the Roughriders on June 15 … and it didn’t start well.

Called on to try his first field goal in almost five years — a 32-yarder late in the first quarter — Lauther pushed it wide right.

“My nerves were shot right there,” says Jordan, who was at Mosaic Stadium that night. “He told me after the game that, after he missed that kick, he looked at me and knew he couldn’t miss any more. He knew I was there and he didn’t want to disappoint me. After that, he didn’t miss again.”

“I kind of glanced up and saw him and he was looking at me like, ‘Let’s go. I know you’re better than that,’ ” Brett notes. “I shook my head and said, ‘I’ve got the next one.’

“After that, hitting three straight from 40-plus definitely felt good, especially with how the last four years have gone. I could have easily let that one get to me and miss the next one and then it’s just a tumble effect. I might not have got a chance to go on the field again if I missed it.”

Lauther hit his next four tries in that game, connecting from 45, 43, 46 and 32 yards in Saskatchewan’s 27-19 victory over Toronto.

Those four started a string of 11 straight successful kicks before he missed one July 19 against Hamilton. Since that miss, he has gone 8-for-8.

Bartel held for Lauther in Hamilton and now is performing those duties again in Saskatchewan. The veteran punter would have a good idea of how the intervening years might have affected Lauther — but in Bartel’s mind, nothing has changed.

“He’s still the same kid,” he says. “You’d reckon that after a 56-yarder he’d go around blurting a little bit, but you don’t get much out of him at all.

“I’ve started calling him ‘Big Leg Lauther,’ ” Bartel continues with a grin, “and all he does is give you that stupid little baby-faced grin and that’s all you get out of him.”

The folks in Truro are getting something out of Lauther, though.

Troy suggests there’s a sense of pride among citizens that one of their own is succeeding in the CFL. And the way Brett made it — persevering through four years of frustration — may have something to do with that sentiment.

“Those years that he was told no led to this,” Jordan says. “Everything happens for a reason. If he had got a second chance right away, maybe things wouldn’t be going this well and he could be done for good.

“I’m glad he stuck with it.”