Shemar Bridges and Orlondo Steinauer Honour Their Mothers as Training Camp Kicks Off on Mother’s Day

On Thursday morning, just before heading north from Florida Shemar Bridges gave Tina Grant, his mom, a card and an emotional explanation of what Mother’s Day means to him.

“I told her that without my mom—without her support and care, I wouldn’t be who I am or have got as far as I have,” the sophomore Ticat receiver said from West Virginia en route to Hamilton. “I went through a lot of good times in my career but also a lot of tough times. Without her help and keeping me up when I was down and things weren’t always going the way I wanted them, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Bridges spends a lot of time with his mother and celebrated being a finalist for the CFL’s Rookie of the Year Award with a fitting thank you for her care and mentorship: he brought Tina Grant with him to Vancouver for the awards ceremony during Grey Cup week last season.

They toured the city, attended the CFL Player Awards Gala, checked out all the Grey Cup Festival events,  and watched the game together, just as they’d taken in so many Jacksonville Jaguars games side-by-side while Bridges was growing up.

Bridges can’t be with his mother on Mother’s Day. In reality, no Ticat can. Sunday is the first full session of training camp and days are long and full.

But out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind, especially on Mother’s Day. A significant number of professional athletes have been raised by single mothers and, often, they appreciate what went into it.

Canadian Football Hall of Famer Orlondo Steinauer, the Ticats’ president of football operations, has always been open about discussing his positive upbringing in Seattle as the only child of his late mother, Margaret. He credits her and his grandmother Bonnie with instilling in him the core human values he strives to live by.

“Everybody is raised differently,” he says. “In my case, my mom was a single mother who had me at the age of 19. And it was just us when I was growing up. You see that love and the sacrifice and the support that she had for me, and as you grow older, you really appreciate it.

“What’s interesting is I have a circle of friends—five of them all from university—and we have conversations about our moms. You don’t really realize it at the time, but we were all raised by our mothers…only. I think it’s common. Some people have both parents, but even when you have both, there is so often a special place in families and people’s hearts for the mom.”

Margaret was the inspiration for the Ozone Foundation which Steinauer and his family established in 2009. It focused on improving the quality of life for those less fortunate.

“It was for underprivileged kids, but it was also for single moms,” Steinauer said during a break from rookie mini-camp this week. “We brought them to games in Toront,o and it was a testament to recognize mothers.

“Everybody’s raised differently, but for people like my mom, a baby-sitter, a bag of groceries, time to themselves, they’re really not afforded that. When I was young,g I saw the relief that she had when we were given two movie tickets or things like that.”

Steinauer says Mother’s Day is a reflection of “all the little things, the memories,” and to this day, whenever he sees a beach or even a body of water, he thinks of his mother because she loved to go to the beach.

“I can’t speak for everyone about what moms mean, only from my own experience and the people closest to me. It’s always individually-based: I think that’s a key point. Not everybody has a great relationship with their mom, and some might yearn for it.  And some have amazing relationships with their father and their mother.

“My mom was close to her mother. Gramma and Mom, I think about them all the time. How everybody celebrates is really up to them, but it’s nice to have a formal day for it. The important thing is, “celebrate them while they’re here.”

Bridges agrees with that and lives it. He has had lifelong support from his biological father, Andra Bridges, and his stepfather, Damian Swain, a former Calgary Stampeder, both of whom have been big parts of his life.

“But as far as 24-7 ,it was only my mom; it was always me and her in the house,” he says. “To me, your mom is always in your corner, there for you through thick and thin, the ups and the downs; who gives you that hard parenting as well as the love, the nurture, the care.

“My mom was there when I was coming up: she was at every single practice, every game, all my college games, every game I played in the NFL, and she came up to Canada three or four times to see me with the Ticats. To give me love and nurture,  but also to be one of your toughest critics as well, to keep you accountable for yourself.

“And that’s what my mom’s always done for me.”