Jeremy O’Day doesn’t want a cake, a card or any form of fanfare for his 25th anniversary with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
But he would like a ring, a few months down the road.
The only celebration he covets would accompany a Grey Cup championship — his third since joining the organization as a free-agent offensive lineman on Feb. 26, 1999.
“When the times are good here, there’s no better place to be,” says O’Day, the Roughriders’ Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager.
“I look forward to when you win the Grey Cup. People show up to see the Grey Cup and they bring pictures of the last time we won a Grey Cup. Their kids are this tall and all of a sudden they’re grown up. Obviously, you wish the picture would be from a couple of years ago. That’s the idea.
“That’s what you’re driving to do. That’s why we work as hard as we can to try to have a successful team.”
The Roughriders often defined success by simply existing when O’Day signed with the team, after spending his first two CFL seasons with the Toronto Argonauts.
In the winter of 1999, the Green and White was only two years removed from holding a telethon.
Taylor Field’s artificial turf, installed in 1988, was far beyond its best-before date. To this day, O’Day has a scar on his left leg — a reminder of a turf burn he sustained during his first of 12 seasons as a Roughriders player.
The 1999 season was painful in other respects. Saskatchewan won only three games.
“I was actually contemplating not playing anymore after that season,” O’Day reflects. “I was contemplating becoming a teacher.
“The deciding factor was my brother. He told me, ‘You only get one shot to play pro football. I think you should give it another shot.’
“At the time, I wasn’t making very much money, although that wasn’t the overriding factor. There was the fact that we had such a tough season, so I was kind of debating whether I wanted to come back and play another year.”
The debate ended rather abruptly when Jon O’Day provided wise advice to his younger brother for the umpteenth time.
“I only have one sibling and he’s my go-to guy in any situation,” Jeremy O’Day says. “I’ve always looked up to him and idolized him.
“He wasn’t going to let me quit.”
The O’Day brothers — the proud sons of Chuck and Judy — grew up in Lockport, N.Y., near Buffalo.
After excelling in football and baseball at Lockport High School, Jeremy moved to Pennsylvania and enrolled at Edinboro University — the alma mater, coincidentally, of current Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris.
“When I was in college, my brother would actually send me handwritten letters from his college,” O’Day recalls during an interview in Mosaic Stadium’s football-operations area.
“When I was playing at Edinboro, he would write me letters of encouragement. He always would throw a $20 bill in there and tell me to go get something to eat.
“I still have all the letters. Every once in a while, I’ll bring them out and read them again.”
At the time, in the pre-text-messaging era, O’Day could not have imagined the story he was in the process of writing.
Regina, Saskatchewan? Where’s that?
Now it’s home, as has long been the case.
O’Day and his Regina-born wife, Dana, will celebrate their 20th anniversary on May 1.
Another milestone will be observed on Aug. 31, when the Roughriders’ GM will turn 50.
“I’ve been here for more than half my life,” he marvels. “It’s pretty neat to think that I’ve been a Saskatchewan Roughrider for that long.”
In terms of people who have been employed by the community-owned team on the football-operations side, O’Day is fourth all-time in terms of longevity.
Ivan Gutfriend was an Athletic Therapist with the Roughriders for 37 calendar years (1978-2015). He took over full-time in 1980, when Sandy Archer retired after being the team’s “Wizard of Gauze” since 1951.
Gutfriend and Archer both worked alongside Norm Fong, who was the full-time Equipment Manager from 1979 to 2008.
Gutfriend, Archer and Fong are all in the SaskTel Plaza of Honour. O’Day would be an automatic inductee, except for the fact that his career is in progress, thus rendering him ineligible.
The credentials, though, are eye-popping.
He was the CFL’s All-Star centre three times — in 2006, 2007 and 2009 — in addition to making the West Division’s dream team on six occasions.
In 2007, he helped Saskatchewan win the third Grey Cup title in franchise history.
Factor in his contributions in 2013, when he was the Assistant GM, and he has played an integral role in half of the Roughriders’ championship seasons.
O’Day’s all-around excellence was recognized in 2008, when he received the Tom Pate Memorial Award, which is presented annually to a CFL Players’ Association member of exemplary contributions and character.
Along the way, O’Day has raised a family. He and Dana are the proud parents of Tyson, Brooklyn and Alyssa.
O’Day is most appreciative of the stability he has enjoyed because of the manner in which it has benefited those who are closest to him.
“That’s a big part of it — not having to move your family around,” he says. “My kids went to elementary school and high school here and now they’re moving on to college.”
Their father is also looking ahead, as he invariably does. His priority is to work tirelessly to improve the team.
Mind you, there is the occasional diversion, such as a request to be interviewed about his 25th anniversary as a Roughrider.
“I wouldn’t have known about it at all, but I started getting all these messages of congratulations on LinkedIn,” he says with a chuckle.
“I don’t even know when I signed up for it — it was years ago — but it must actually say in there when your work anniversary is, because I’ve been getting all these random emails from people congratulating me on 25 years.”
Sure enough, O’Day’s LinkedIn profile lists “Feb 1999” as the beginning of his tenure with the Roughriders.
As much as he appreciates the congratulatory comments, “Nov 2024” is foremost in his thoughts.
