SASKATOON — Mark Roberts has added incentive as he pursues a job as a defensive back with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The 25-year-old product of Orange, Texas, isn’t just trying to crack the Roughriders’ roster for himself. He’s also driven to succeed as a way of paying homage to Reggie Garrett, Roberts’ best friend growing up and his quarterback on the football field.
Garrett died on Sept. 17, 2010, the victim of an undetectable pediatric heart condition. He collapsed on the sideline after throwing a touchdown pass to his favourite receiver — Roberts — for the West Orange-Stark Mustangs in their high school game against the Jasper Bulldogs.
More than six years later, Roberts continues to use the memory of his friend as motivation.
“I think about him every day that I’m on the football field because we started this together,” Roberts said following the Roughriders’ training-camp session Wednesday at the University of Saskatchewan’s Griffiths Stadium. “Everything I do, I do for me and him.”
Garrett and Roberts started playing football together in Pop Warner and continued until they reached high school.
Just before halftime of the Mustangs’ first home game of the 2010 season, Garrett and Roberts met and called their own play — one they had seen the University of Houston Cougars run during a game a week before.
After throwing a 12-yard touchdown pass to Roberts, Garrett jogged to the Mustangs’ sideline — and collapsed. Paramedics worked on Garrett and then rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he later died.
A subsequent autopsy revealed he died of an arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy.
“I’ve known Reggie for a long time; he’s like my little brother,” Roberts recalled. “When that happened, I was crushed. It destroyed me a little bit.
“I actually had his helmet after the game. I took it home with me, sat outside for a while, looked to the sky and just asked him for a sign. I saw a star flashing. So every night, I look up and I try to find that star and see if it’s still flashing for me.
“When I come out on the field before games, I go to the 12-yard line and I pray. He impacted my life so much that I feel like I’ve got to succeed for him.”
A week after Garrett’s death, Roberts got a tattoo to honour his friend. The artwork on Roberts’ left shoulder depicts a football player sporting a halo and angel’s wings, with the words “Reggie Clutch Garrett” and the numerals “12” (Garrett’s jersey number) and “9-17-10” (the date of his death) underneath. On Roberts’ left bicep are the words “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens,” a Bible passage from Philippians 4:13.
“It was something I had to do,” Roberts said of the tattoo. “It’s a strong brotherhood I have with him and that’s a bond I can’t get from anybody else. He kept me out of a lot of trouble. I love him for that. I still play this game hard every day like he’s still here.”
Roberts went from high school to the University of Houston, where he kept the jersey Garrett was wearing in his final game — the jersey the paramedics had cut open while tending to the teenager — tacked up on a wall. Roberts said he eventually lost the jersey when someone cleaning out his dorm room threw it away.
“I was so hurt,” he said. “But those memories, you can never forget them.
“(Garrett’s death) just made me realize that, at any given moment, you can have everything taken away from you. I deal with that. It bothers me at times, but you’ve got to get up and keep fighting for him.”
That brings us to Saskatoon and the Roughriders’ training camp.
Roberts left Houston after two seasons and transferred to Lamar University. The 6-foot-3, 187-pounder had 79 receptions for 1,795 yards and 31 touchdowns in his two seasons there and hoped he would be selected in the 2015 NFL draft.
But he wasn’t drafted and didn’t land a job in the NFL, so he looked north. His performance at a workout staged this off-season by the Roughriders in Houston resulted in an opportunity.
“I could tell by his hands that he wasn’t going to make our football team as a receiver,” Saskatchewan head coach-GM Chris Jones said with a chuckle. “But I did like his explosiveness and his size, so I flipped him over (to defence).”
The move has paid off, at least during the early stages of training camp. Roberts had four interceptions over the first two days of camp, using the lessons he has learned from defensive backs coach Jason Shivers as well as the ball skills he did have while playing receiver.
“I’m just doing what I can and making sure I don’t have any regrets,” Roberts said. “I don’t want to leave any plays on the field and I want to show Coach Jones that I’m coachable. I’ve got to put it all on the line.”
