By Vicki Hall
Calgary Herald

Rob Cote broke into the workforce as a dishwasher at Smitty’s in Cochrane. Glamorous, it was not, scraping maple syrup and bacon grease off mountains of plates and silverware.

From there, he graduated to a summer position — smiles mandatory — lifting screaming kids on and off the rides at Calaway Park.

Pretty standard stuff.

But then Cote fell into his dream occupation as a fullback for the Calgary Stampeders, the same team he cheered for as a tyke running around the Safeway Quarterback Club.

“I lived in my parents’ basement, and I went to university the first three years that I played,” he says. “So I was just basically a 20 year old kid, who had the coolest summer job in the world. That was pretty much the way I looked at it.

“My buddies were painting and they were doing landscaping or whatever — and I got to play football. So that’s how I approached it, and now it’s grown to a little more than that.”

A little more? Seven years later, the six-foot-one, 230-pounder is the starting fullback for a 13-3 Stampeder team on a mission to qualify for the 101st Grey Cup in Regina.

Talk about living out the fairy tale.

“I still remember Marcus Crandell came out to the automotive shop in Cochrane — that was the year they won the Grey Cup,” says Cote, who was 15 when Crandell and Stamps knocked off the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 2001 championship. “I was star-struck. I couldn’t believe it. He was playing catch with us in the parking lot, and we were so fired up about that.

“Marcus Crandell was out in Cochrane, and we actually got to catch a football from him.”

Born in Calgary and raised in Cochrane, Cote learned how to catch a football around the age of 6 when the family moved to Reno, Nev., for a couple of years before heading back to Alberta.

Hockey was not an option, so Cote slipped on a helmet and shoulder pads and fell in love with the American obsession.

“The football was wild down there,” he says. “One year, I had a crazy drill sergeant as a coach. He wasn’t actually a drill sergeant, but he coached us harder than a high school coach would coach here, and we were seven, eight years old.

“It was wild, but they run a tight ship, and they take it seriously. It makes good football players.”

Does it ever. Cote and his older brother Nate, a quarterback, went on to star for the Victoria Rebels of the Canadian Junior Football League.

At age 20, Rob Cote started to sniff around about an opportunity to play for the Calgary Colts but practise with the Stampeders.

Before the Stamps committed the idea, they flew the Cochrane kid to a free-agent camp in Houston

“I didn’t want to embarrass myself,” Cote says. “I was star-struck that Akili Smith was going to be there.

“I just didn’t want to be the worst one out there.”

By all accounts, Cote wasn’t the worst one there. In fact, he earned an invitation to training camp as a fullback instead of his customary role as a slotback.

On the first day of camp, veteran fullback Cory Hathaway tore his Achilles tendon. And so on the second day, Cote took starting reps at fullback, a position he had never played.

Overmatched, Cote spit half a tooth out of his mouth after taking a hellacious hit from one of the veterans.

In a panic, he ran over to Pat Clayton and asked the trainer to hold it for him until the end of practice in hopes of getting it repaired.

“It didn’t hurt so bad,” Cote says. “I mean, I’m trying out for the Stampeders, right? I’m not just going to stop.

“I didn’t even think about it, and then I guess it was something the coaches talked about. They thought ‘maybe this is a tough kid.’

In his first game, that tough kid reeled in an eight-yard touchdown pass from Henry Burris on a play dubbed ‘Base Cote’ by then offensive co-ordinator George Cortez.

“It was a moment I don’t think I’ll ever forget,” Cote says. “In the span of six months, I went from thinking I would never be in the CFL to signing a contract, to going to training camp to scoring a touchdown.”

In spite of his seemingly overnight success, Cote stayed grounded. Bit by bit, he chipped away at his schooling and completed his Bachelor of Commerce with a major in operations management from the University of Calgary in 2010.

“It doesn’t take a lot to keep you humble in this league,” he says. “I hope that next year the minimum salary can go up quite a bit, because it’s quite low. It’s a working class league, for sure.

“I knew right from the start, that I was getting into this because it’s what I wanted to do — not because it’s my ticket to success in life. I knew I was going to need to be successful in aspects other than football in order to have a life filled with success — not just a couple of highlights in the middle and then fall from grace.”

The average professional football career lasts roughly three years. Cote is still going on strong seven years in, having only missed two games due to injury throughout his entire career.

“Rob’s been underrated for a while,” says offensive co-ordinator Dave Dickenson. “He’s just one of those guys who you sometimes forget how valuable he is and what he does.

“He’s our backup receiver. He plays fullback. He does a great job on special teams.”

At 27, with a lot of hard miles on the odometer, Cote realizes his dream summer job won’t last forever.

But he’s soaking up every moment with his mom and dad and assorted other family members watching from their customary seats three rows behind the Stampeder bench.

“Most guys are really excited when they have a couple members of their immediate family go to the games,” Cote says. “And I get that every game.

“I don’t take it for granted. It’s fun playing in this city, because this is home.”