Marc Mueller, like his grandfather, donned No. 23 while playing quarterback for the Riders.
The year was 2003 and Mueller was wearing green and white in Regina Minor Football’s bantam division.
His proud parents, Larry and Lana Mueller, were in the crowd at Optimist Park to watch the other Riders.
One of the first post-game phone calls was made to Ron Lancaster, who was eagerly awaiting an update on how his grandson’s game had unfolded.
On that fine evening, I was introduced to Marc Mueller, who was 14 going on 34.
Ronnie used to say that Marc “was born mature,” and those words still resonate.
As a teenager, he carried himself like an adult, with an assertive, confident manner and a firm handshake.
Then, as now, he was always quick with a quip, with a preference for self-deprecation. A friendly dig at a friend or relative is also in the playbook for Marc, whose comedic repertoire was on display once again when he was introduced as the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ Offensive Co-ordinator on Thursday morning.
Late in Lancaster’s playing career, The Little General doubled as the Roughriders’ OC. Now his grandson has been hired to call the plays.
Ten months ago, I was hired to write and wallow in history for the very same football organization that now employs someone who has been a friend for 20 years.
So many exciting things have happened since I joined the Roughriders in February. Every day, my aging head spins as I walk into and around Mosaic Stadium. Even so, Thursday’s media conference created more pinch-myself moments than usual.
There weren’t many unfamiliar faces when Marc walked into the media room. It felt more like a reunion.
Moreover, it felt perfect.
It was a joyous day, too, for Larry and Lana.
After the formal part of the proceedings, Lana noted that a member of her family has now worked for seven of the CFL’s nine teams.
After spending 18 seasons with the Roughriders as a player or coach, Ronnie was the field boss in Edmonton and Hamilton.
His son, Ron Jr., was an assistant coach when his father was with both teams. Ron Jr. also coached with Winnipeg and Toronto.
Larry’s first season as the Roughriders’ Assistant General Manager was capped by a 1989 Grey Cup victory.
Lana used to work in the players’ parking lot, outside the edifice formerly known as Taylor Field.
“My uncle, Bob, came and guest-coached one year at the old stadium,” Marc said, rewinding to 2009. “He said, ‘My whole life, I’ve either been Ron’s son or Ron Jr.’s brother, but today I was Lana the Parking Lady’s brother. It was something new for me to go through.’ ”
What isn’t new? The sense of humour — always something I appreciated from the CFL version of No. 23.
“They said there were all these seasons in Saskatchewan,” the iconic Roughriders quarterback said in 2006. “The wind blew in the winter, the spring and the summer, and Lancaster would blow playoff games in the fall.”
Marc is very much an extension of his late grandfather — someone whose down-to-earth, easygoing nature is also reminiscent of former CFL quarterback Danny McManus.
When Marc was growing up, McManus quarterbacked Lancaster-coached teams in Edmonton and Hamilton. It is principally because of McManus that Marc developed such an attachment to No. 14, which he wore while quarterbacking the Sheldon-Williams Spartans and University of Regina Rams.
“He taught me all my throws and all my technique and everything,” Marc told me in September of 2004, when he was a Grade 10 starting quarterback with Sheldon-Williams.
“He taught me all my reads. I go over lots of stuff with him. He’s a good guy. After every game, I’ll e-mail him all the time and keep in touch.
“Thanks, Danny, for teaching me how to throw.”
In my capacity as the Regina Leader-Post’s Sports Editor, I followed up by asking Marc why he was wearing McManus’s No. 14 instead of Lancaster’s trademark No. 23.
“I’m not wearing 23 again,” Marc replied. “It makes me look too slow.”
The next morning, his grandfather saw that quote and immediately called the Spartans’ quarterback.
“He probably would have been half-mad and half-joking,” Marc recalled the other day.
“I really only saw him play four games — whatever they would show on late-night CBC during the week of the Grey Cup. I’d see the Grey Cups from ’66, ’69, ’72 and ’76.
“He’d say, ‘When I came up here, I played defensive back. I had a chance to play professional baseball.’
“He’d always talk about how good of an athlete he was. He didn’t want me to think that he was strictly the pocket quarterback that maybe I had seen on TV.”
For the record, Lancaster boasts the longest touchdown run of any quarterback in Roughriders history — a 48-yarder in Edmonton on Aug. 22, 1969.
Only two Roughriders signal-callers have ever covered a greater distance on a single play. Rick Worman, who wasn’t a noted scrambler, nonetheless took off for 55 yards in Toronto on Aug. 15, 1991. He topped Stan Stasica, who registered a 49-yarder against Winnipeg on Oct. 13, 1947.
But neither run ended in the end zone, whereas Lancaster went the distance.
His speed and athleticism were also evident on Aug. 20, 1960, during his second CFL game.
Rare is the quarterback who celebrates three interceptions, but it was Lancaster who ended up with the football as a member of the Ottawa Rough Riders’ defensive backfield.
With Russ Jackson calling signals for Ottawa at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton, Lancaster moved to the secondary and returned one of his three picks for a 20-yard major.
“That was his first touchdown,” Marc noted. “I don’t know what happened to me, but he was a really good athlete.
“There must have been some other genes getting in the way that limited my athleticism.”
Holllllllld on for a second!
We take you back to Oct. 2, 2010 — George Reed’s 71st birthday, by the way — when Marc rushed for touchdowns of 35 and 24 yards to help the Rams defeat the visiting University of Alberta Golden Bears 40-8.
Afterward, Marc jokingly referred to himself as the Tim Tebow of Canadian college football.
“Before, I only had one touchdown in my life, and that was in high school,” Marc told me nearly a fortnight after his two-TD eruption. “Even that touchdown was brutal. I barely got into the end zone on a quarterback sneak. After that, we scrapped the play.”
When Marc was in high school, by the way, his first touchdown pass was to a receiver named Campbell.
He connected with Kory Campbell for a 33-yard score against Balfour on Sept. 17, 2004.
That surname was very familiar to Roughriders fans in the 1960s, when Lancaster’s busiest receiver was Hugh Campbell.
These are the type of nerdy little details that somehow keep the blood flowing through the (varicose) veins of a creaky Roughriders Historian.
With Marc returning to Regina to join the Roughriders, the past and present intersect so perfectly. The logistics are also ideal, because his wife Jenaya’s family also lives in the Queen City.
And, of course, there is also the matter of the Lancaster statue that is situated outside Mosaic Stadium, a few feet away from a likeness of George Reed.
Is there additional pressure that accompanies being part of a Roughriders royal family?
“In a good way,” the proud father of four-year-old Sawyer and one-year-old Wallace said. “I’ve kind of embraced that my entire life.
“It didn’t matter where I played. It was always, ‘That’s Lancaster’s grandson. He gets an article in the paper because he’s Lancaster’s grandson,’ and stuff like that.
“I’ve embraced that. I’m proud of that. I’m excited for it and I think it’s an awesome thing. Without that, I don’t know what I’m doing.
“I got to have the best seat in the house for my entire life for how to learn about football and quarterbacking and coaching. I’m excited to embrace that and hopefully my kids get to hang around it.”
