By Stampeders.com staff

They say records are made to be broken but unless there are fundamental changes to the way the Canadian Football League game is played, former Stampeders star Terry Evanshen owns one mark that will stand forever.

During the 1966 season at old Winnipeg Stadium, Evanshen combined with quarterback Jerry Keeling for a 109-yard pass completion against the Blue Bombers. Since the CFL field is only 110 yards long and because the furthest back a ball can be snapped is a team’s own one-yard line, the 109-yard distance can be matched but never surpassed.

In the long history of the CFL, only two other passing plays covered 109 yards — Montreal’s Sam Etcheverry hooked up with Hal Patterson in 1956 while BC’s Damon Allen and Albert Jackson combined for a 109-yarder in 2002.

Interestingly, five of the six players involved in those maximum-distance plays — Evanshen, Keeling, Etcheverry, Patterson and Allen — are in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

Evanshen broke in with the Montreal Alouettes — his hometown team — in 1965 and in his rookie season he led the East Division in receptions. As a result of a contract dispute, he was traded to Calgary and from 1966 to 1969 he represented the Red and White with distinction.

Although he wasn’t a big target — he stood five-foot-10 — Evanshen was an intelligent player with sure hands and he earned West Division all-star honours in each of his four seasons with the Stamps. He was a CFL all-star in 1967 and was also named the league’s Most Outstanding Canadian that season.

Prior to Evanshen’s arrival, the Stamps had only had four 1,000-yard seasons by a receiver — Bob Shaw, Paul Salata, Willie Roberts and Bobby Taylor each did it once — in their entire history. Evanshen cracked the 1,000-yard mark in his first three seasons and fell just 51 yards short in 1969.

The 1,662 receiving yards he amassed in 1967 (during a 16-game season) established a franchise record that stood for 24 years until Allen Pitts broke the mark in 1991, by which time the CFL regular-season schedule had been extended to 18 contests.

Pitts broke his own record three years later and his 1991 and 1994 seasons remain the only instances of a Stamps pass-catcher racking up more yards than did Evanshen during that wonderful 1967 campaign.

Similarly, the 17 receiving touchdowns scored by Evanshen in 1967 has only been bettered once as Pitts had 21 majors in 1994.

During his four-year run with Calgary, Evanshen had 291 receptions for 4,815 yards and 43 touchdowns.

Evanshen was traded back to Montreal prior to the 1970 campaign and while he earned two more division all-star honours — with the Alouettes in 1971 and with Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 1975 — his four seasons with the seasons would remain arguably the four best of his career.

In return for Evanshen, the Stamps acquired centre Basil Bark, who would be a fixture on the Calgary offensive line for eight seasons and earned division all-star recognition in 1971 and 1973.

Evanshen retired after the 1978 campaign after accumulating 600 catches for 9,697 yards and 80 touchdowns over 14 seasons.

He was inducted into Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1984.

Sadly, Evanshen has no recollections of any of the great moments of his football career. In 1988, he was involved in a horrific car accident as he was struck by a van that ran a red light.

The accident almost killed him — at one point in hospital, a priest administered the last rites — and he was in a coma for a month. When he awakened, he didn’t know who he was.

By his own admission, Evanshen initially struggled to cope with the unimaginably difficult situation — “I was a really ugly person,” he admits of those first few years after the accident — but with the support of family and friends, he built a new life for himself.

Evanshen embarked on a career as an inspirational speaker with the message of seizing each day and making the most of it.

In 2005, a TV movie about Evanshen’s remarkable story — The Man Who Lost Himself — aired on CTV and TSN.

“There is another purpose in life for me now,” says Evanshen, “and that is to reach people who are involved in tragic situations.

“Every day is a new day and from the moment I wake up, at four o’clock or five o’clock, I’m planning on being a good person that day and to carry on proper responsibilities and to develop myself. I just want to do everything to the best of my ability.”