{"id":89039,"date":"2025-08-22T15:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/89039\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T15:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:49:07","slug":"new-riders-kicker-campbell-fair-explains-how-he-kept-his-cfl-football-dream-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/89039\/","title":{"rendered":"New Riders’ kicker Campbell Fair explains how he kept his CFL football dream alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Saskatchewan Roughriders’ kicker Campbell Fair<\/a> never stopped chasing his football dream after he was let go by the Edmonton Elks in 2023.<\/p>\n

“I basically proceeded like I was still playing on a football team,”\u00a0Fair told\u00a0voice of the Green and White, Dave Thomas. “Every day I would go to the field, kick, do some running, and then after that I would go to the gym. It was a little bit more of a load because I also had to work a nine-to-five\u00a0job before. Luckily, the business knew that I was pursuing this,\u00a0they were very accepting of it, and they were pushing me as much as they could.”<\/p>\n

Once Fair got the call from the Green and White,\u00a0he had quite an adventure to arrive in\u00a0the Queen City.<\/p>\n

“I got the call on Monday night around 8 p.m.\u00a0They told me they wanted me to come out, but it would have to be a bit of a journey.\u00a0I left around 9:30 p.m. on Monday night,\u00a0slept in Hamilton for a couple of hours, drove down to Buffalo the next morning and had a few connecting flights. We had cancellations and delays,” Fair said. “We had to reorganize everything, but finally got back on Wednesday\u00a0morning at\u00a03 a.m.,\u00a0then got to kick Wednesday.\u00a0That went well,\u00a0I got to kick again Thursday, and that went well as well.”<\/p>\n

For Fair, he has a straightforward view on how he sees this opportunity with the Riders.<\/p>\n

“My mindset is to approach every day like I’m going to be kicking on the weekend,” Fair explained. “In case it does happen, that puts me in the best position to succeed — take it one kick at a time and hope for the best.”<\/p>\n

Before his pro career, Fair spent time in U Sports playing for the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees from 2018 to 2022. He earned\u00a0the Gee-Gees\u2019 Chris Evraire Award in 2022 for Special Team Player of the Year and was an\u00a0OUA second team all-star. Later, he would make it to the CFL\u00a0when the Edmonton Elks selected\u00a0him in the sixth round with the 51st pick in the 2023 CFL Draft. He\u00a0split time initially with the Elks before having a shot with the Stampeders in training camp in the same year and\u00a0\u00a0eventually spent some time on the Riders practice roster.<\/p>\n

“In Ottawa, it was pretty good because I got to work with Lewis Ward, who was the kicker there before me.\u00a0He stayed in Ottawa, so he came out and would help me and give me some good tips,” Fair explained. “I also got to\u00a0be my own boss there,\u00a0I was left to myself to work on my craft.\u00a0That forced me to be self-sufficient and if there was a problem, I had to figure it out on my own.”<\/p>\n

The Roughriders\u00a0travel\u00a0to Calgary to take on the Stampeders on Saturday. Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk and Wes Cates have the pregame show\u00a0at 2 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder\u00a0have the game call at 5 p.m. Listen to our comprehensive coverage on\u00a0the 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Saskatchewan Roughriders’ kicker Campbell Fair never stopped chasing his football dream after he was let go by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,52624,82],"class_list":["post-89039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-saskatchewan-roughriderslewis-wardbrett-lauthercfl-2025campbell-fair","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89039","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=89039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}