Roughriders quarterback Trevor Harris<\/a> has been a part of all three Labour Day weekend scheduling staples. He made his on-field debut in the Saskatchewan-Winnipeg game last year.<\/p>\n\u201cI went to a Division II school, so I didn\u2019t really get to be a part of the big rivalry games,\u201d the former Edinboro University Fighting Scots standout, who hails from Waldo, Ohio, said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up watching Ohio State\/Michigan (on TV). You\u2019d watch the Iron Bowl with Auburn and Alabama. Up here, you\u2019ve got the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got the big rivalry games where everybody\u2019s talking about the game and everybody\u2019s there and the game is in the air for such a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, I was driving to the stadium four hours before the game and I saw people walking around wearing green and white jerseys and walking in and out of mom-and-pop shops. Those are the things that you watch in movies and that you kind of long for.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up wanting to be part of those things and, going to a small school, I didn\u2019t really get that opportunity. So last year, being a part of that and really feeling that game in the air, it brought tears to my eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that tomorrow will be the same thing. I reflect quite a bit and reflect on the things that I\u2019ll miss when I\u2019m done playing. This is absolutely one of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can feel the emotion of the game, because I think when you grow up, you don\u2019t really envision yourself playing in front of a half-packed crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the full crowd and, when they\u2019re selling tickets for standing room only, those are the ones you live for.\u201d<\/p>\n
THE BUZZ AROUND TOWNES<\/p>\n
This has been an eventful week for Brett Lauther, even when you subtract the Labour Day Classic commotion from the equation.<\/p>\n
Brett and his wife, Jill, welcomed a baby girl \u2014 Townes Mary Ann Lauther \u2014\u00a0early Wednesday morning at Regina General Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it just changes everything,\u201d a proud new member of the fathers\u2019 fraternity said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t think anything\u2019s going to change day to day, but it\u2019s a whole new gratitude for life. It really gives meaning for what\u2019s important in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just thankful for my wife, our families, this organization \u2026 everything right now. I\u2019m just really excited to have her here. Everything is going smoothly. My wife\u2019s doing great. The baby\u2019s doing great.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to a good game tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lauther was excused from practice on Wednesday (for obvious reasons) and was a limited participant in Thursday\u2019s session before it was business as usual on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been a crazy week, but probably the most enjoyable week of my life,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited to get a chance to play tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
The looming Labour Day Classic will be Lauther\u2019s seventh.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, he tied the team record for field goals in a Classic (five), joining Dave Ridgway (1987) and Sandro DeAngelis (2012).<\/p>\n
Lauther has also registered three of the five longest field goals by a Roughrider in the annual event, splitting the uprights from distances of 55 (2024), 54 (2021) and 53 (2023) yards.<\/p>\n
He is tied for second with Paul McCallum for all-time field goals by a Roughrider (16) in a Classic. Ridgway heads the list at 39.<\/p>\n
And then, of course, there was Lauther\u2019s game-winning field goal on the final play of the 2019 Classic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important,\u201d he said of the historic matchup, \u201cbut you don\u2019t want to make it bigger than it is because it still counts as just one win.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, at the end of the day, some games are a little bit bigger than football.\u201d<\/p>\n
FANS COME FIRST<\/p>\n
After meeting with the media on Saturday, Harris made a beeline for the Mosaic Stadium concourse to sign autographs as part of Roughrider Fan Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really cool, aside from the fact that we\u2019re missing Ohio State versus Texas right now, which is disheartening,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a community-owned team. The fans own the team. The fact that we get to sit and chat with them, just for a second, or sign an autograph or take a picture, we\u2019re just very, very grateful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ask people when they sign autographs, \u2018Do you remember practising your autograph as a kid? Now you get to do this for real.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a small scale compared to being a mega-star or an NFL guy, but it\u2019s cool when you get an opportunity where if you say a few words to a kid who\u2019s going through something \u2014\u00a0like I got the opportunity to do earlier this week \u2014\u00a0and to be able to have an effect on those people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s really what you live for. I have a heart for Jesus Christ and that\u2019s really why I am the way I am and why I play the way I play.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust because I\u2019m saved, I hope I get to represent Jesus in that way and that I can kind of help other people by having the certain stage that we have, no matter how small or big the platform is.\u201d<\/p>\n
CHRONICLING THE CLASSIC<\/p>\n
The now-familiar Labour Day Classic term was not widely applicable to the Roughriders versus Blue Bombers, as far as I can tell, until 1988.<\/p>\n
However, the label was used on occasion.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the wonder that is newspapers.com, we take you back to Sept. 2, 1924, when the pages of the Regina Leader-Post included a story on a (please excuse the exclusion of the \u201cu\u201d) Labor Day Classic automobile race in Altoona, Pa. (Did any of the vehicles require an Al-toon-up?)<\/p>\n
An L-P feature from Aug. 29, 1985 focused on the Regina Press Club\u2019s mixed softball tournament \u2014\u00a0the Labour Day Classic.<\/p>\n
At long last, on Sept. 1, 1988, \u201cLabour Day Classic\u201d was a reference to a looming CFL collision of arch-rivals. The term appeared in a team-sponsored advertisement on Page C5 of the L-P.<\/p>\n
September of 1989: More ads.<\/p>\n
Late August of 1991: Ads, once again.<\/p>\n
Ditto for 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cLabour Day Classic\u201d did not appear in an article until Sept. 5, 1998, when Darrell Davis pointed out that \u201cWinnipeg is 0-9 heading into Sunday\u2019s Labour Day Classic.\u201d<\/p>\n
MY FIVE FAVOURITE CLASSICS<\/p>\n
Selecting the five best Labour Day Classics is akin to choosing the cutest puppy in a litter.<\/p>\n
But as my 50th consecutive Classic approaches \u2014 see again: OLD \u2014 I will valiantly attempt to pare down a lengthy list to something manageable. Ready, set \u2026<\/p>\n
(#1) Sept. 2, 2007: Kerry Joseph scored on a 27-yard quarterback draw with six seconds left to give Saskatchewan a 31-26 victory over Winnipeg in what turned out to be a Grey Cup preview. (We won that one, too.)<\/p>\n
(#2) Sept. 4, 1983: Ken Clark \u2014\u00a0the Roughriders\u2019 punter \u2014\u00a0kicked a go-ahead, 41-yard field goal into the wind with 43 seconds remaining, lifting the locals to a 32-30 win. Clark was thrust into double duty after Ridgway was injured while making a tackle on a kickoff return. Adding to the storybook ending, Clark had just returned to Regina from Toronto, where he was at the bedside of his ailing mother. Veronica Clark passed away shortly after her son made the game-winning kick.<\/p>\n
(#3) Sept. 1, 2002: Rocky Butler, who began the season as the Roughriders\u2019 fourth-string quarterback, made a surprise start and ran for three TDs in a 33-19 home-team win.<\/p>\n
(#4) Aug. 31, 1986: Joe Paopao threw a last-minute, 56-yard TD bomb to Ray Elgaard to propel Saskatchewan to a 34-30 victory. The Roughriders rebounded from a 23-7 halftime deficit and (gulp) a 56-0 loss in Winnipeg (July 5, 1986).<\/p>\n
(#5) Sept. 1, 2019: As referenced earlier, Lauther\u2019s 26-yard field goal on the final play put a 19-17 Roughriders win in the books. Once the football sailed between Mosaic Stadium\u2019s north-side uprights, Lauther and holder Jon Ryan sprinted 100-plus yards and immersed themselves in the Pil Country pandemonium.<\/p>\n
ROLL CREDITS \u2026<\/p>\n
\u2022 Nice people who deserve a plug: Palmer Capri de Jong, Shiane de Jong, Pete de Jong, Townes Mary Ann Lauther, Brett Lauther, Jill Lauther, Maeve Doreen McLellan, Kristin Maugeri, John Pineiro, Kent Maugeri, Don Steidl, Marge Steidl, Juan Aguirre Salazar, Rebeca Martinez, Itzel Escorsia, Garth Johnson, Carol Gay Bell, Cathy Smith, Wade Hackl, Richard Kies, David Bachynski, Jane Bachynski, Colin Bachynski, Margaret Bachynski, John Mace, Michael Remis, Andrew Paterson, Bev Novenski, Ashley Robinson, Carol Radford-Grant, Marc Cyrenne, Lesley Cyrenne, Grant Langford, Byron Jespersen, Sofia Moreno and Jade Clarke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Labour Day Classic, unlike this senescent scribe, never gets old. The storied tradition is embraced by Saskatchewan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-109517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}