The affinity for Craig Smith was obvious at the AffinityPlex.
Smith and his wife, Cathy, were magnets for coaches, general managers, scouts and friends in general during the CFL Combine on Saturday and Sunday in Regina.
Craig Smith, whose six seasons as the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ director of player personnel included a landmark home-field Grey Cup victory in 2013, greeted everyone with a fist-bump.
There were plenty of hugs for Cathy, who has been a pillar of strength for her husband since his health battle began in October of 2017.
After being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, he underwent a stem-cell transplant that produced the desired result. His cancer, such a formidable foe, is in remission.
However, the treatment has exacted a toll.
Full-body radiation and four rounds of chemotherapy have created other issues, such as fluid buildup — one draining session can reduce his body weight by up to 14 pounds — and mobility-related challenges.
He has also been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, although recent test results have buoyed the spirits of the patient and his cardiologist.
“My heart is coming back,” Smith said with a smile. “It’s regenerating.
“And I always say that my stem cells were donated by a 19-year-old, so I’m actually getting younger.”
His unconquerable good nature, evident and appreciated throughout the 20 years he spent in the employ of a CFL team, was celebrated at every opportunity during the latest Combine.
“It was nice to see so many people,” Smith, 68, said after the crowd around him finally dispersed early Sunday afternoon.
“There is such a fraternity in football — people I worked with, people I didn’t work with, guys I was on the road with, people I worked for.
“As you get older, you become more emotional. Sometimes you’ll tear up when you see something on TV.
“Honest to God, it was a choke-up weekend for me. It was very emotional and it was great for my mental health.”
The recent Combine was Smith’s 18th — and, in so many respects, the best.
“We bought this wheelchair and this was an opportunity to get out,” he said. “I hadn’t been to a store in two or three years. Then we went to Safeway one day and we spent more money because I was there.”
The lifelong appetite for football being insatiable, Smith was intrigued by the notion of attending the Combine once he discovered it would be held in the city he and Cathy have proudly called home since 2010.
“In the back of my mind, I thought, ‘I would love to go to that,’ ” Smith said.
He promptly reached out to Ryan Janzen — the CFL’s associate vice-president, football operations — and received credentials to attend the Combine.
“I never thought I’d ever get back,” Smith said. “I am so grateful for all the support people have given us. I can’t emphasize enough how great Cathy has been through my journey.
“I’ll tell you, it was fantastic to come out here. When you’re in the CFL for 20 years, you get to know a lot of people.”
Ever a scout, Smith still follows the Combine like he did for those 20 years. Armed with rosters and charts, as always, he pays close attention to every player, every drill.
“I’ve still got game,” he stated, “and if a team is interested, I’d certainly look at it.”
The first game, period, dates back to 1962. He was six years old when he was introduced to the hometown Winnipeg Blue Bombers, live and person, in the company of his father and uncle.
One visit to Winnipeg Stadium provided additional fuel for a wide-eyed youngster’s football fandom.
He eventually became an active participant in his favourite sport, suiting up for the St. Vital Mustangs juvenile team as a 19-year-old.
The on-field experiences came to an abrupt halt, however, when he suffered a fractured neck.
Smith continued to be an ardent follower of football while beginning his working life.
Along the way, Cathy joined the team. Smith and Smith became an official partnership nearly 40 years ago — on their wedding day (Sept. 14, 1985).
Fast forward five years. While living in Vancouver and working as a computer operator at the University of British Columbia, Smith happened to see a newspaper advertisement.
WANTED: A coach to help out with a pee wee football team.
Smith embraced the opportunity and did everything possible to expand his already encyclopedic knowledge of the game. He devoured football books, especially ones that pertained to strategy, and was a regular at coaching clinics, free-agent camps and the like.
All that led to an opportunity to join the UBC Thunderbirds’ coaching staff. In 1996, he took a leave of absence from his full-time job at the university to focus on football, despite the financial hit that would ensue.
His ever-supportive wife, then working in communications at UBC, said: “Go for your dream, because you never know when it could end.”
Cathy’s perspective, influenced by a 1997 diagnosis of breast cancer, was invaluable.
Myriad sacrifices made by the Smiths were rewarded in 2000, when the B.C. Lions were looking for an offensive assistant, quality control. The Lions, suitably impressed when Smith was a guest coach at their training camp in 1999, hired him full-time a quarter-century ago.
As a first-year CFL coach, he celebrated a championship when B.C. won it all in 2000.
The confetti had barely stopped flying when Smith was asked to become the Lions’ player personnel co-ordinator.
It was Smith, in fact, who placed University of North Carolina Tar Heels quarterback Darian Durant on the Lions’ negotiation list.
After five years with B.C., Smith was hired as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats’ director of personnel.
Shortly thereafter, Hamilton added Durant in a negotiation-list dispersal draft that followed the folding of the Ottawa Renegades. Ottawa had listed Durant after he was deleted by B.C.
Durant’s rights ended up in Saskatchewan as part of an April 12, 2006 trade that enabled the Roughriders to claim former Ottawa quarterback Kerry Joseph with the first overall selection of the Renegades dispersal draft.
Who could have envisioned that Durant and Smith would both contribute to a championship with Saskatchewan in 2013?
Durant and Smith became colleagues in 2010, when the latter was hired by Saskatchewan.
Smith, who had spent two years scouting for B.C. after leaving Hamilton, remained with Saskatchewan through the 2015 season.
He then became the Blue Bombers’ national scout — a full-circle move, considering his allegiances as a youth — and immersed himself in that role until the team announced the leukemia diagnosis on Oct. 20, 2007.
“It happened when I was 61,” Smith reflected on Sunday. “I had it in mind that I would work until I was 70. Well, guess what? Once I was hit between the eyes with cancer and what I have had to deal with, it was tough.
“But I’m still kicking. I’m blessed to be able to be here. The talent here is fantastic and I’m looking forward to seeing where all these players go in the draft.”
Nearly a month after the April 29 CFL Draft, there will be cake and canine consumables — a recent recruit, lovable little Lexi, being a key part of the equation.
“My birthday is on May 28,” Smith said. “Our dog’s birthday is on May 27.
“We’ll be having a party at midnight.”
