Instead of enjoying Thanksgiving in Kalispell, Pat and Rhonda Reilly find themselves in Winnipeg, Manitoba this week.
Holiday aside, the Reillys are north of the border for one of the oldest and biggest sports traditions in Canada.
Sunday marks the 103rd Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League.
Pat and Rhonda’s son, Mike, a 2003 graduate of Flathead High School, is quarterbacking the Edmonton Eskimos against the Ottawa Redblacks. Kickoff is at 4:30 p.m., Nov. 29 at Investors Group Field. The game will be televised in the U.S. on ESPN2.
While another former Flathead quarterback has received most of the attention this week for the Denver Broncos, Mike Reilly is in the midst of another stellar season up north.
In his sixth season in the CFL, the 6-foot-3, 230-pound QB is a bonafide star. The Eskimos are undefeated since Reilly returned from injury in September and are favorites to win this weekend’s championship, largely due to their talented signal caller. Reilly has completed 65 percent of his passes this season for 2,449 yards, 15 TDs and 10 interceptions.
In the West Division final last weekend, Reilly threw three touchdown passes and ran for another two scores to help Edmonton Eskimos defeat the defending-champion Calgary Stampeders 45-31. Reilly finished the game 31 of 39 for 370 yards without an interception and led Edmonton to its ninth win in a row and the first Grey Cup appearance since 2005.
Pat, a history and psychology teacher at Flathead High School, and Rhonda, office manager and administrative assistant at the high school, drove to Alberta for the game to watch their son play, as they have all season.
“His physical maturity, mental capacity and his team are all coming together at the right time,” Pat said this week before Flathead dismissed for the holiday break. “It’s pretty cool to see.”
It’s been a long, winding road for Mike Reilly to arrive here in the CFL spotlight.
As a standout multi-sport athlete in high school in Kennewick, Washington, Reilly’s family moved to Kalispell during his junior year. The following fall, as a senior, he earned the starting quarterback role for Flathead after three games as a backup and set a school record with 2,280 passing yards, leading the Braves to the semifinals. He spent a year at Washington State University before transferring to Central Washington, where he was a four-year starter who set nearly every school passing record. He also set an NCAA record for consecutive games with a touchdown pass with 46, leading some national media outlets to lump him in with the best quarterbacks in college for any division.
After graduating in 2009, he was the only Division II QB invited to the NFL combine and bounced around for several franchises on practice squads, including the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. Finally, after the Seattle Seahawks released him, Reilly chased his best chance at playing time and accepted an offer from the BC Lions.
The rest is history.
The BC Lions won the Grey Cup in 2010, Reilly’s first season as a backup behind former Montana State University quarterback Travis Lulay. Now Reilly is chasing his own title as a starter.
A year ago, Reilly and Edmonton finished just shy of the Grey Cup, losing to Calgary in the West Final.
In the first game of this season, against the Toronto Argonauts, he suffered an MCL knee injury that could have ended many people’s seasons.
Not Reilly. He underwent extensive rehabilitation and training to return as soon as possible.
“He worked really hard and fought back,” his father said.
There’s also a reason CFL players have voted Reilly Toughest Player in the CFL three years running.
“When I coached him, I taught him the difference between pain and injury.
With an injury, you stay down. Pain, you get up and keep playing,” said Pat Reilly, who retired from coaching after 51 overall seasons this year, including a stretch for Flathead in recent years. “His philosophy has always been that way.”
It’s not uncommon for Canadian media outlets to highlight the big hits that Reilly takes every game. He’s not afraid to put himself out there and reach for an extra yard. He also famously doesn’t slide; he always dives head first for the extra yards.
“Physically he’s banged up. He’s been hit so many times and it takes a whole offseason to recoup. But his mental portion has peaked,” Pat said.
For Reilly’s parents, this weekend’s game will be a mix of nerves and excitement. Either way, seeing their son enjoy his dream of playing professional football is “the cherry on top of the pie,” Pat said.
“Finally he’s gotten to this point where he’s playing for all the marbles,” Pat said.
He definitely earned it.