CALGARY Keith Shologan was previously one of the most compelling stories in the CFL because of the car crash which claimed the lives of two of his sisters and the way his family used his football career as the glue to help them get through it.
Keith was 15 years old, in grade 10, playing high school football in Spruce Grove when it happened. His brother Mark, then 19, drove his sisters, aged nine and seven, to a movie in St. Albert. Keith decided not to go and instead went with his parents to see his sister Tara play volleyball.
They drove past an accident where they were re-routed. They called the kids on their way to the movie but had no answer on the cell phone. Not long later police arrived at the volleyball game to deliver the news.
Wednesday Keith Shologan came to the Grey Cup as a feel-good story, a fun story and news in his own right.
He's the sort of reverse Roughrider who is coming back to his home province to start at defensive tackle in a Grey Cup game in his first half season as a starter.
He's the player who moved up to a starting role when Scott Schultz shocked Rider Nation with his mid-season retirement, the player Ken Miller identified first on his list of unheralded players who meant the most in getting Saskatchewan to this Grey Cup in a comment at the coaches press conference Wednesday morning.
Shologan was born in Alberta to be a Saskatchewan Roughrider.
He jokes that he's from Dog River, Alberta.
Dog River is the small town settling for the rural Saskatchewan CTV comedy hit Corner Gas.
It's about 200 people, he said of his Dog River. It's a small farming community. It's definitely not big city.
If you're driving through the town they used (Rouleau) to film Dog River, it's exactly the same. It's just like there.
And that's no bull. Well, actually, a lot of bull.
The Lethbridge native who played high school football in Spruce Grove is actually a resident on the family ranch near Rochester about an hour north of Edmonton.
That where the bull comes in.
We calve about 150 a year. We sell between 100-150 bulls a year. And about 300 cows.
Saskatchewan is wheat. Alberta is meat. But other than that, he fits right in.
In fact there likely was only one Roughrider who spent the day Monday at the Agribition farm fair in Regina. There are almost a dozen Saskatchewan players on the team but it was the guy from Alberta at the Agribition.
Shologan says it was nice of Miller to say he's the most unheralded but that probably is because he plays between heralded defensive ends John Chick and Stevie Baggs.
I consider a team success my success. Those two guys are so good they get a lot of recognition. I'm just happy to be playing football and playing it at this level.
I'm not worried about recognition. It's a big stage. If I have a good long career and we get to this game a few times, I'll get my fair share.
In his rookie year last year Shologan only managed to get into one game on defence, but that was in Commonwealth Stadium with his parents and remaining sister and brother in the stands.
I just had that one shot. A guy got hurt and they didn't have anybody else, he said. They went to the game just to watch me on the sidelines. This year they've been to every Rider game in Edmonton and Calgary.
They'll be in the McMahon Stadium stands Sunday.
Shologan says he'll take a moment before the game as he knows will his parents Pat and Melody, brother Mark and wife Joanne, all from Rochester and sister Tara and husband Doug from Camrose, to think of his late sisters.
My dad has always said that it was my football that played a big part in getting the family through it, he said of the accident.
But he'll also take a moment to think about himself starting in a Grey Cup game in his home province in his first year as a starter.
I feel extremely lucky and extremely blessed to be here. And I feel extremely blessed to be here this year. This blessing is huge.
