Rick Moffat
CFL.ca
As the Alouettes arrived in Vancouver for their annual dose of “Curse of the Dome” talk – shutout in the victory column since Y2K by the Lions – there was only one Alouette smug in the knowledge his personal shutout streak would surely be extended. Even if a secret from the locker-room is exposed.
Anthony Calvillo, the gracious future Hall of Famer, has been snubbing a young fan for years. A little boy innocently asks for an autograph. Calvillo tosses humility aside like he flicks passes over the middle to Cahoon, and refuses to put pen to football. Can you blame him?
Calvillo suspects the boy’s father has put him up to it. Calvillo knows the boy’s father stole said football from him. Calvillo knows the boy’s father. BFFL’s in fact.
The boy’s father is Barron Miles; the football is evidence of on-field larceny at Anthony’s expense and the ex-Alouette-turned-Lions coach’s own future Hall of Fame credentials.
“My son just wants an autograph,” insists Miles, the master of deception, a nine-time CFL all-star, all-time leader in blocked kicks and second overall in career interceptions. The wily grin betrays the claims of the man who spent seven seasons plotting against AC in practice every day, then five more years scheming against him on the field.
“The only thing that’s different now is I don’t get to implement,” says the ‘rookie’ safeties coach for B.C., who won CFL Rookie of the Year honours when Ben Cahoon broke into the league.
“I won’t be chirping at him,” Miles promises, “but I am the far better prankster, hands down!”
“He knows I’ve always ignored him anyway,” says the soon-to-be 38-year old quarterback whose special quinoa diet has kept his weight at a career low 200 pounds this season.
“But that’s probably true,” says Calvillo. “There was a lot of rumours that Barron was ‘The Phantom’ at Alouettes training camp. The Phantom would put dead fish in lockers, different objects that I can’t mention in people’s helmets. My stuff got put up on the goalposts once and like a little kid I went running to coach just to get Barron in trouble. He had to go up and get it.”
“No, I never plotted with one against the other,” says Ben Cahoon. “But The Phantom is legendary and I didn’t know Barron might have been involved. That’s a revelation to me,” adds the future Hall of Famer who arrived when the football Gods smiled on Alouettes training camp of ‘98. “I have to process this and think some things through – how Barron could have pulled off some of those pranks.”
“They never say hi, they answer the phone and say ‘Hey Fatboy, what’s up?’” reveals Jennifer Miles, who met her husband their very first day of classes at Nebraska. (There has never been a better living example that you should attend 8 a.m. math class).
Fate and a strong mother raised Anthony in East L.A., and Barron in the trouble-strewn streets of Jersey. Football brought them together in Montreal where they happened to live across the street from one another.
“I don’t remember what hit it off with them – they seem to have been friends forever,” says Jennifer, who shares Barron’s mischievous streak.
When the Calvillo’s made fun of a Miles Family Christmas ornament it got gifted and re-gifted back and forth between Vancouver and Montreal several times. “We don’t have it anymore and they don’t believe us,” claims Jennifer.
When asked to share some photos of their family vacations together Barron insisted: “Those are locked up in a vault until BOTH our playing days are over. Besides, most were beach holidays – do you think people really want to see AC with his shirt off?”
But the wives quickly caved. Their bonds of friendship are great as well, “if not more” according to Alexia Calvillo.
“I just thought about that the other day,” she said, her voice choking instantly with emotion. Just days after her battle against cancer began, Jennifer was at her door. “I never hugged a person so hard. Outside my family that was one of those moments that just really strikes me. Jennifer spent the week and slept over at the hospital on the little cot. Here I was having treatments and it was like a slumber party.”
A prized possession is the scrapbook Barron and Jennifer put together of the family fun they’d all shared. Through cancer and Jennifer’s repeated forced bed-rest during pregnancies friendship flourished.
“When I was on bed-rest with Zion (Barron Junior) Alexia was just dating Anthony but offered to babysit our daughter Raven and I thought: ‘I don’t know this girl. She’s not taking my child!’ Now I’d trust her with my kids any day.”
“Football is a strange, wonderful world and it brought us all together. But I truly believe outside of sport we would have been friends. It’s the connection we feel.”
So will Anthony ever sign Barron Jr.’s football? Perhaps only The Phantom knows.
