“BIG LAZZ” GOING INTO THE HALL OF FAME
Over the course of a 14-year career in the Canadian Football League, Rob Lazeo picked up some pretty cool souvenirs.
He’s the proud owner of a Grey Cup ring, earned in 2008 as a member of the Calgary Stampeders. And in his living room, the offensive lineman has a couple of game balls on display, including one from a July 24, 2010 game in which his Stamps rushed for 247 yards in a 40-20 victory over one of his former teams, the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Lazeo also lives with other less-thrilling mementoes of his playing days, in the form of persistent pain in basically any joint you can name.
But the 41-year-old Abbotsford native doesn’t carry an ounce of regret on his massive frame (he was listed at 6’5″, 310 pounds during his final season with the Stamps). While playing a game for a living can start to feel like a grind for many pro athletes, Lazeo’s childhood passion for football never waned.
“My knees are shot, my back is sore, elbows, neck, you name it,” he said with a chuckle during an interview with The News last week, in advance of his upcoming induction into the Abbotsford Sports Hall of Fame.
“But man, it’s just an honour (to play pro football). I always looked at it like, we’re just so lucky to do this. You get to act like children and run around and hit people for a living. It was great. I never wanted it to end.”
Lazeo played the majority of his pro career with Saskatchewan, spending a combined eight seasons in Regina over two stints, with a two-year run with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in between.
“When I played there, it was unreal,” Lazeo said, reflecting on the legendary passion of Roughriders fans. “We were the worst team in the league (in the late ’90s), and it was hard, because it’s a small town. It’s not much bigger than Abbotsford . . . so anywhere you went, people knew who you were.
“You’d have to have some thick skin . . . when you were 3-15 or 5-13.”
The Roughriders traded Lazeo to Calgary prior to the 2007 season, and it was there that he had his greatest success, both individually and team-wise.
In 2008, he was a West Division all-star at centre, and was the Stamps’ nominee for the CFL’s outstanding lineman of the year award. Calgary capped that season by beating the Montreal Alouettes 22-14 in the 96th Grey Cup at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
Following the 2010 campaign, his last in the CFL, Lazeo was the winner of the Presidents’ Ring – an honour voted on by his Stampeder teammates which goes to the player who best combines excellence on the football field with leadership, inspiration and motivational skills.
These days, he and his family make their home in Abbotsford, and he works alongside several of his former Stampeders teammates for GridIron Drilling Services, an Alberta-based company in the oil and gas industry.
Lazeo and community sport builder Liz Carter are being inducted into the Abbotsford Sports Hall of Fame in a ceremony on April 26 at the Legacy Building at Exhibition Park.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Lazeo said. “Growing up here and then moving back to my hometown, it’s quite an honour. I never envisioned when I started playing football that I’d go as far as I did and have the accomplishments that came my way.”
Congratulations Rob Lazeo.