When Roy Shivers woke up on the morning of April 12, 2006, he was in dire need of a franchise quarterback.
By day’s end, he had stocked the Roughriders with two players who would meet that description.
The marquee addition at the time was Kerry Joseph, who was claimed by Saskatchewan with the first overall pick in a dispersal draft of players from the defunct Ottawa Renegades (2002-2005).
Joseph lived up to the hype — and then some.
In 2007, he quarterbacked the Roughriders to a Grey Cup championship, just three days after being named the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player.
Also on the Roughriders roster for the 2007 Grey Cup Game, in which Saskatchewan defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23-19, was third-string quarterback Darian Durant.
He, too, would become a legend — someone who was introduced on Wednesday as one of this year’s three inductees into the SaskTel Plaza of Honour. His fellow enshrinees are the late Steve Molnar, who was a Roughriders running back from 1969 to 1978, and Shivers.
“To go in with Roy — the guy who brought me into the league — is a very special moment for me,” Durant, who was the Roughriders’ starting quarterback in three Grey Cup Games, said on Wednesday.
“I’m excited to finally get to see him again, to shake his hand, and to tell him ‘thank you’ in person, because I wouldn’t be here without him.”
Here’s how it all unfolded after the Renegades folded.
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats owned the No. 1 pick in the dispersal draft, but Shivers vowed to change that.
Hence the blockbuster deal that sent tailback-returner Corey Holmes — who had been named the CFL’s top special teams player and the West Division’s Most Outstanding Player in 2005 — to Hamilton, along with safety Scott Gordon and a first-round pick in the 2007 CFL Draft (who turned out to be defensive lineman J.P. Bekasiak).
With considerably less fanfare, the teams also exchanged negotiation-list quarterbacks, with Durant’s rights going to Saskatchewan in return for those of Reggie Ball. Hamilton had chosen Durant in a dispersal draft that was held to allocate players who had been on the Renegades’ negotiation list.
The Durant-Ball swap was widely regarded as an afterthought at the time, but that certainly wasn’t Shivers’ perception.
“I had heard about him,” he recalled on Wednesday when asked about the former University of North Carolina Tar Heels standout.
“We had a workout at Georgia Tech and he threw the hell out of the ball. I said, ‘Hey, this is the guy we need. We need to take a look at him.’
“I had read about him and heard about him and stuff, but when he came to the camp in Georgia, I thought, ‘Let’s get him signed up,’ and that’s what happened.”
Who could have envisioned everything that would happen in the years ahead?
Joseph’s prowess as a pivot was hardly a surprise. By securing his rights, Shivers added a quarterback and a 1,000-yard rusher — someone who would enter the Plaza of Honour in 2019.
As for Durant, he was one of four quarterbacks who attended training camp with the Roughriders in 2006. Joseph and Marcus Crandell both had a wealth of experience. Rocky Butler, the unlikely hero of the 2002 Labour Day Classic, was entering his fifth season in Riderville.
Joseph, Crandell and Butler all saw significant playing time in 2006. Durant’s duty was restricted to a cameo appearance during a blowout victory in Hamilton on Aug. 26, just five days after Shivers’ 6½-year tenure as the Roughriders’ GM had abruptly concluded.
The next year, Durant dressed for all 21 regular-season and playoff games without receiving as much as one snap.
Everything began to change on March 6, 2008, when Joseph was shockingly shipped to the Toronto Argonauts.
Crandell began the 2008 season as the starter, with Steven Jyles next in line. Once again, Durant was third on the depth chart, but not for long.
The 2008 Roughriders, who had four different starting quarterbacks, ended up winning all four times Durant began a game as the first-stringer.
That was enough to convince Miller that Durant should be handed the reins, full-time.
Good idea.
In 2009, Durant led Saskatchewan to first place in the West Division for the first time in 33 years.
He threw for a career-high 5,542 yards in 2010, when Saskatchewan made a second successive Grey Cup appearance.
When the Roughriders returned to the championship game, it was at home. Durant completed a spectacular post-season run by throwing three TD passes in a 45-23 Grey Cup victory over Hamilton on Nov. 24, 2013.
As soon as the outcome became obvious, the wisdom of Shivers’ 2006 trade with Hamilton was reconfirmed.
With one transaction, he had acquired half of the Grey Cup-winning starting quarterbacks in Roughriders history.
“We were desperate for a quarterback,” he reflected on Wednesday, “and it worked out pretty well all around.”
That was evident when this year’s Plaza class was announced.
“I was in shock, first of all, because I never thought it would happen with all the things that had gone on in the past,” said Shivers, 82.
“I was happy and I was kind of satisfied. I thought, ‘At least they finally understand that I did a halfway decent job when I was there,’ and I appreciate that.”
As for Durant, he has the rare distinction of entering the Plaza two years in a row. He returned to Regina last October when the 2013 Roughriders were inducted as a team.
“That was a very special team and it was a special award, for sure,” Durant, 41, said when asked to compare the back-to-back enshrinements.
“I don’t sit here and talk about individual accolades too much, but it’s definitely an honour. Any guy would lie if he told you he didn’t care about succeeding at the highest level, so to be inducted is really special.
“You look at the names before you and the guys who have been a part of the glory days of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. To be included in that and to be looked at as one of the legends is an awesome feeling.”
