Ricky Ray will be flooded with memories when the Eskimos induct their former quarterback into the Wall of Honour during a halftime ceremony on Friday at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium.
For starters, he’ll think about how many different pieces had to fall into place for him to simply begin his CFL career in Edmonton.
“In everybody’s story that you hear, there’s adversity that people go through, but there’s also a lot of little choices and things that go your way or don’t go your way, and it’s how you react to those,” Ray said. “I’ve had some things that, obviously, went my way that allowed me to have this kind of career, whether it was having the (NFL’s San Francisco) 49ers sign me out of the blue coming out of college when I thought I was done playing or having Coach (Rick) Worman, when I was playing in af2, make some calls and get me invited to Edmonton’s training camp.
“There are things like that where you look back, and you’re like, ‘Man, I’m so glad those people and those things worked out for me and got me going in the right direction.’ I definitely feel lucky when I think about that.”
After college (Ray still holds the Sacramento State record for completion percentage), he took a job in the management-training program at Frito Lay. Part of the training included driving a delivery truck and re-stocking shelves at variety stores. But fate intervened and “Frito Ray” lasted only one month in that job before deciding to give football another shot.
First, the 49ers signed the six-foot-three, 210-pound QB to be “a (training) camp arm.” That experience prompted Ray to make his professional debut with the Fresno Frenzy of the Arena Football League’s development league (af2). He played seven games before Fresno coach Rick Worman, a former Eskimos quarterback, set up a last-minute training camp opportunity for Ray as the fourth quarterback in Edmonton.
Eskimos current Head Coach Jason Maas was the starting quarterback at the time while backup Keith Smith was rehabilitating an Achilles tendon injury and rookie Leon Murray arrived in town with high expectations.
“We go into the first pre-season game,” Ray recalled. “Leon goes in, and I think he threw an interception and had a rough go. I did, OK. I didn’t make any big mistakes but didn’t do anything great. They released Leon after that game.
“So really, it was just Jason and me for the next week of training camp, so I got a ton of (repetitions in practice), and I got a ton of playing time in the second pre-season game and played pretty well. From arena2 to being in camp to them releasing the guy who I came in with and Keith being hurt and, all of a sudden, I’m the backup quarterback going into the first four weeks of the season.
“And then the starter gets hurt,” he said. “Things happened really fast for me, and I got an opportunity to play right away.”
Ray made his CFL debut when Maas was injured in the fourth game of the season and threw for four touchdowns against the BC Lions in his first start the following week. He finished the regular season with 2,991 passing yards and 24 TDs while sharing playing time with Maas, but drew all of the starts during the playoffs with the veteran QB once again sidelined with a back injury.
Edmonton lost the 90th Grey Cup 26-16 at home to the Montreal Alouettes.
“I got a lot of experience, playoff experience, Grey Cup experience,” Ray said. “Playing on a good team with great players around you just gave me a lot of confidence. It ended up being a great rookie season for me.”
Ray remained the starter in 2003 after Maas had back surgery and passed for 4,640 yards and 35 touchdowns as the Eskimos returned to the Grey Cup in Saskatchewan, this time defeating the Alouettes 34-22 for Edmonton’s first championship title in 11 years.
At that point, Ray left the Eskimos for an opportunity with the New York Jets. While he dressed for six games, he never threw a regular-season pass in the NFL and asked for his release at the end of the 2004 season.
“It was something I had to do because that’s the league I grew up watching,” Ray said. “I would have regretted it if I would have never taken that chance, always wondering ‘What if?’ To be able to go down and really have a full opportunity with this just allowed me to put that behind me when it didn’t work out.”
Ray didn’t have any guarantees but hoped he would be able to return to Edmonton in 2005 and pick up where he left off.
“I don’t think I could just go and play anywhere and be on any team and be a guy who can carry a team anywhere,” he said. “I feel like I’m the type of quarterback who needs a very good supporting cast around me. I wanted to be back in the situation I had in Edmonton and, luckily, that came true, and I got to come back to Edmonton.”
Maas had passed for 5,274 yards in 2004, but Ray played all but the final drive of the 2005 regular season, becoming the second Eskimos QB to pass for more than 5,000 yards (he finished with 5,510 yards and a pro football record 479 completions).
“That had to be tough for him, just coming off a really good season and making it to the playoffs and then having to compete again for his job,” Ray said about Maas.
“I played every snap the whole year until the last drive of the regular season. Jason came in and took the team down (the field) and scored a touchdown. He gave the team a lot of confidence after not playing all year and then to be able to come in and do that.
“We were struggling offensively. I wasn’t playing very well down the stretch and was in a little bit of a funk. We go into Calgary in the semi-final and Jason comes in at halftime and leads us to victory. Then, basically, the same thing happens in the West final.
“Everything in my first two years – in ’02 and ’03 – went so well,” Ray continued. “We went to the Grey Cup both years. We won in 2003. Everything had been positive for me.
“Then, in 2005, I faced some adversity with some not-so-great play and faced some criticism and all that sort of stuff,” Ray recalled. “Going through that time was really hard. But looking back, I learned a lot from that time, and I was so proud of the way Jason handled everything, as well.”
Ray was named the Grey Cup MVP after completing 35 of 45 passes for 359 yards and two touchdowns in a 38-35 overtime victory over the Alouettes.
“That was good for me, being a young player, to be able to get through a situation like that (struggling down the stretch),” he said. “To be able to start the Grey Cup game still and to win that Grey Cup game and perform well was a great confidence-booster for me.”
But it was also good for Ray “to see my friend, Jason, come in and help the team (win the playoff games) after he had been so patient all year not playing. Looking back, it was just a great year for us.”
Ray said that Maas was there for him from the moment they first met in the Eskimos office during his rookie year.
“He included me in everything,” said Ray. “He didn’t have to. He could have just said, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ and left me. But he drove me around, took me to the weight room, we had a workout, took me out and threw with some of the veteran receivers who were in town and just really made me feel like a part of the team and included and it ended up being a great relationship for us.
“We just had a lot of respect for each other. We competed hard, but we never took it personally where it affected the team or affected our relationship, and we were able to make it work.”
Maas and Ray were fire and ice, complete opposites who led the team in different ways.
“He’s very fiery,” Ray said. “You see that from the first second you meet him. You’re out there throwing the ball and, if he doesn’t like the way he threw it, he’s kicking the dirt or saying some bad words. He really shows his emotions outwardly. He puts 120 per cent into everything he does and shows a lot of passion for what he does.
“For me, I’m the opposite. I hold it all in. You really couldn’t tell what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling. Even though I’m feeling the same thing, I’d keep them to myself and keep them locked in.”
Maas was traded to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats immediately after the ’05 Grey Cup, but more adversity was on the way for Ray. He passed for 5,000 yards in 2006, but the Eskimos failed to make the playoffs, ending the longest playoff streak of 34 years in North American pro sports history.
The Eskimos not only missed the playoffs again in 2007, but Ray was injured (separated shoulder) and missed the last five games, as well.
“So that was a tough couple of years after things had gone so well the first three years of getting to the Grey Cup every year,” Ray said. “Missing the playoffs once was tough enough after 34 years, but to miss the playoffs in Edmonton two years in a row was even tougher.
“That was kind of the story of my last six years in Edmonton. Kind of going through the roller coaster of professional football and having some tough seasons and then bouncing back with a good season and then having another tough season. We could never get that consistency back.”
Ray, who made at least 16 regular-season starts in seven of his nine seasons with the Eskimos, continued to pile up the passing yards en route to a club-record 40,531 yards, passing Warren Moon’s passing yardage record and completing 20 consecutive passes at one point. He was named Edmonton’s most outstanding player four times and became the CFL’s highest-paid player.
“To be able to make it nine years in Edmonton was a good accomplishment for me,” said Ray, pointing out that none of Edmonton’s great QBs – Warren Moon (six years), Matt Dunigan (five), Damon Allen (six), Tracy Ham (six), Danny McManus (two) and Mike Reilly (six) – “had a real long career there.”
Jackie Parker, a star player from back in the day, did survive for nine seasons, as well, from 1954-62, before he was traded.
“I was able to move up and get some of those personal things, franchise passing records and all that stuff,” Ray said. “But when you’re playing in Edmonton, all that stuff doesn’t matter. It’s all about how the team does and winning and trying to win a championship.
“When you’re losing, no matter what you do, you feel like it’s not enough or you are not playing good enough,” he added. “When you’re not even putting yourself in position (to make the playoffs), it gets pretty hard.
“And being a quarterback is different,” Ray pointed out. “You’re judged a lot of times on winning and losing more than any other position, so you’ve got to be able to deal with that criticism, as well, and try not to let that affect your game.”
Maybe Ray’s most unusual accomplishment with the Eskimos was rushing for 135 yards, and a touchdown on 12 carries in a game against the BC Lions in 2010 while passing for only 139 yards.
When the Eskimos ran a zone read on their second play from scrimmage, “the (defensive) end crashed down, I kept the ball, and there was nobody there,” said Ray, who had actually spent more time working on his running skills during the previous off-season. “(That 45-yard run) just put me in the mindset that game of running. So we ran a few more of those plays, they didn’t really expect me to run, and I got a few more good runs. Then I dropped back a few times, and they covered stuff down.
“Just from getting some positive runs early in the game, in my brain, I had that running instinct, and I was able to keep running that whole game. It was definitely an anomaly of my career, getting over 100 yards rushing. It was the only time I did that. Definitely not the blueprint of how Ricky wins the football game.”