{"id":619453,"date":"2026-04-21T19:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619453\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T19:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:27:13","slug":"the-best-of-biggie-main-takeaways-from-his-media-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619453\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best of Biggie | Main takeaways from his media session"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even today \u2014 just two days into retirement following a hall of fame career which includes a football resum\u00e9 that positively glows \u2014 Adam Bighill still traces everything back to one cornerstone:<\/p>\n

A ginormous chip on his shoulder that is still driving him every morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you sum up 16 years in roughly five minutes?\u201d began Bighill in a press conference Tuesday morning after signing a one-day contract on Monday to officially retire as a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I\u2019ll start with this: I grew in small town Washington. I grew up with a cleft lip palate. I grew up with a chip on my shoulder. I grew up in a great family with great parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd at seven years old I told my parents I wanted to play professional football.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

He ultimately not only accomplished that goal but became one of the most decorated players in Blue Bombers and Canadian Football League history over a 13-year career that began with the B.C. Lions, ended with the Calgary Stampeders and featured six seasons (2018-24) here in blue and gold.<\/p>\n

Now 37, Bighill\u00a0was part of two Grey Cup championship teams in Winnipeg, winning in 2019 and 2021 and won two of his three CFL Most Outstanding Defensive Player awards here, in 2018 and 2021.<\/p>\n

He met with the media for about 35 minutes on Tuesday and the entire session can be found here:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And here are the main takeaways\u2026<\/p>\n

THE RETIREMENT DECISION<\/p>\n

Bighill spent the 2025 season with the Stampeders and said the difficulty in being away from his family \u2014 wife Kristina, daughter Leah and sons A.J. and Beau \u2014 played a significant role in his decision to retire.<\/p>\n

It was while mentioning Kristina on Tuesday that Bighill broke into tears for her support over the years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how guys do it where they come up here and they\u2019re away from their families and then they\u2019ve got to go back,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s always something I took for granted because I never had to do it. Being in Calgary \u2014 it was a decision where we talked as a family. The kids wanted me to go play, I wanted to go play, Kristina was good with it. It was a handful of months of sacrifice.<\/p>\n

\u201cCredit to Kristina to holding it all down with three kids and I\u2019m gone and not one word of, \u2018Hey, I don\u2019t think you should do it because it\u2019s too hard on me.\u2019 Totally selfless on here and it speaks to everything she is as a strong, powerful woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me awhile to officially say that I was retiring,\u201d he said, later. \u201cIt\u2019s easy to say to myself but it\u2019s hard to say to the world, if that makes sense. It took a while to get to this point but it\u2019s something I\u2019m definitely at peace with.\u201d<\/p>\n

WHY HE CHOSE TO RETIRE AS A BLUE BOMBER<\/p>\n

Bighill came north to Canada with the Lions in 2011 and, after a stint with the New Orleans Saints in 2017-18, signed with the Blue Bombers in May of \u201918. He was asked about why he opted to retire as a Blue Bomber and not as a member of the Lions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won two championships here, went to the Grey Cup five years in a row,\u201d he said. \u201cMy family really grew up as Blue Bombers fans. It\u2019s the most fun I had playing professional football here. It\u2019s a first-class organization and the guys I\u2019m around. It was, for me and where I\u2019m at, a no brainer. I\u2019m happy to say that and that\u2019s no discredit to B.C. They gave me an opportunity and there were so many amazing things we did out there and so many amazing fans in B.C. that still follow me. I\u2019m so thankful and will love them forever.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 Just because I didn\u2019t retire for them doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t have any respect for them. That\u2019s not the case at all. It\u2019s even more credit to Winnipeg and the impact they had on me and my family in my team here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bighill, who now works in the finance industry,<\/a> said he and his partners have a suite at Princess Auto Stadium.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be around. We will be at the games and supporting,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cWe are Bomber fans and a Bomber family.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE ON \u2018THE CHIP\u2019<\/p>\n

Bighill\u2019s secret to success isn\u2019t complicated: work harder than the other guy, lift more than the other guy, study more than the other guy. Couple that with his athletic gifts and, well, it\u2019s a dangerous combination.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that\u2019s been my superpower through everything,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve been willing to go through more pain, more sacrifice, more uncomfortableness, more time with less sleep. As the ultimate competitor I will do what I need to do to beat you. That\u2019s what my mindset has always been \u2014 I\u2019ve been willing to do more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bighill also spoke of how that also applied to the work off the field. He wasn\u2019t just a student of the game, he has a PhD in what to look for, how to react and how to influence a play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way I see the game, it\u2019s like the most-violent game of chess there can be,\u201d Bighill explained. \u201cI always wanted to be more than a piece on the board. I wanted to be able to affect all of the entire game and the only way you can do that is by knowing how the game works. Knowing how the other side thinks, knowing how to move your pieces in a way that affects the entire game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just understand the game at a deep level and that\u2019s because I knew if I was going to become a professional athlete I can\u2019t have any weaknesses. You can\u2019t be a great athlete and maybe not know the playbook and maybe you\u2019re not going the right way and making the right play.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE O\u2019SHEA ENDORSEMENT<\/p>\n

Blue Bombers head coach Mike O\u2019Shea first came across Bighill when he arrived in the CFL in 2011 and the Winnipeg boss was then the special teams coordinator with the Toronto Argonauts, trying to come up with ways to scheme against this dynamo on kick returns.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Canadian Football Hall of Famer himself who played middle linebacker, O\u2019Shea forever raved about Bighill\u2019s skills, but also what he brought to the building after joining the Blue Bombers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of the best to ever play our game and as a coach it was certainly made easier by the amount of work he put in,\u201d said O\u2019Shea on Tuesday after the Bighill press conference. \u201cHe mentioned the word \u2018capacity\u2019 and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve always said: he is always working that capacity, and not in a negative way that is going to burn him out or overload him. He\u2019s just always getting the most out of everything he\u2019s doing every single day and he still does it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said this before: it\u2019s inspiring as a head coach with him being around. He inspired me on a regular basis just to have him in my office and listen to what\u2019s going on in his life and how much he\u2019s actually doing in a day and what that means for him in terms of when he has to get up and when he goes to bed. He\u2019s always going to be excellent at everything he\u2019s trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even today \u2014 just two days into retirement following a hall of fame career which includes a football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-619453","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\/619453","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=619453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}