Imagine following Sinatra at the Sands. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Or Houdini making a 10,000-pound elephant named Jenny vanish into thin air to the astonishment of 5,000 ticket-buyers at New York’s Hippodrome.

Bo Levi Mitchell can understand the degree of difficulty.

After all, he’s got one helluva act to follow this fall.

His own.

“I’d compare it to someone like LeBron James,’’ reasons Stampeders’ QB coach Ryan Dinwiddie. “Seven finals in a row but he’s never satisfied, always searching for new ways to improve, to take his game higher.

“When you’re a top player, in any sport, each year the pressure’s on you, you’ve gotta get better in order to stay ahead of the pack.

“The great ones are the guys who find ways to do that.

“Bo’s one of those guys.”

For Mitchell, one deflating late afternoon aside, 2016 could scarcely have been more auspicious.

The Most Outstanding Player Award. Those 5,385 yards throwing. That gaudy 32-to-8 TD-to-INT ratio. A 107.9 quarterback efficiency rating. A chart-topping 15 regular-season wins.

And now the trick is to be even better. At 27, he’s only now entering the prime of his professional life.

“I still see myself as a young guy,’’ protests Mitchell, teasingly.

“Keep learning. That’s the thing.

“I don’t think I’ve gotten close to my ceiling.

“I still have a lot of room to improve. I see it on film. Me, Dave (Dickenson) and Dinwiddie are always talking about it, where I can go from here and make sure I continue to do that.”

On a picture-postcard-pretty Calgary Marathon Sunday, the Calgary Stampeders got off the start line in a marathon of their own at 9 a.m.: Day One of main camp, a slog that, if conquered in its entirety, hits the finish tape 183 days from now, or all the way to Nov. 26 and TD Place Stadium in our nation’s capital.

The fates of the collective and its most celebrated individual are, naturally, inextricably entwined.

“As I got later in my career, what kind of bothered me at time is I didn’t feel like the coach coaches me as hard as I think I should’ve been,’’ says Dickenson of his quarterback’s challenge to repeat, or better, such a remarkable season.

“Meaning that: they think you know everything, so ‘You’ve got this handled.’

“That’s not going to be the case. We’re going to continue to teach Bo and he’s a motivated man so I know he’ll do that.

“We’re going to coach everybody hard. Doesn’t matter if you’re Marquay McDaniel, Josh Bell or Bo Levi Mitchell.

“We’re going to make everybody better.”

Outside prodding is absolutely essential of course. But that restless appetite for self-enhancement, the LeBron James inner drive that Dinwiddie spoke of, is certainly not lost on Mitchell. In fact, he has his own examples to draw inspiration from.

“(Drew) Brees. I’ve always looked up to him, watching him come off an injury, change teams and go win a Super Bowl.

“The way he creates offences, comes out year after year, no matter what his age, keeps showing people he looks younger and younger.

“I got to work out with him in San Diego and I could not believe the way he works. This guy, plus-30, out-working me? And I’m like: I can’t let this happen.

“It’s very inspiring. It’s why guys like (Henry) Burris, like (Ricky) Ray, like (Anthony) Calvillo … play such a long time.”

Professional sports is a statistic-oriented business, naturally, and Mitchell certainly overloaded the circuits in the numbers game a year ago.

But they are not, his coach reminds one and all, the be-all, end-all.

“He could not win MOP and maybe not have as many wins and still be a better player,’’ Dickenson maintains. “There are things he’s already addressed that he wants to do better.

“Just let things come to him. And he has done that well. It’s such a long season, I don’t think you want to do anything more than make yourself as good as you can be.

“As he’s said, be reliable, make sure you’re there for your teammates. He looked really good today.”

That restless search for higher planes as the years begin to roll along, Mitchell knows, begins with conditioning. On that, he vows never to shirk.

“If you’re a NASCAR driver, you’re going to put a lot of money into that car,’’ is his apt comparison. “I spend a lot of money on my body. I spend a lot of money every single week to make sure I’m healthy and ready to go.”

Mitchell himself has set goals of playing in all 18 games and cutting down on the time-count violations.

Without nit-picking too much, then, what fine-tuning can the best player across this land do in reaching ever higher?

“We can always improve, in all areas, but I think for him in some of his decision-making,” says Dinwiddie. “I think we took some downfield shots when we had completions we could’ve stuck to and stayed on the field; sometimes maybe forcing balls into coverage.

“Obviously he’s got a big arm and he can make those throws but from time-to-time we’ve just got to cut our losses and check the ball down.”

Sunday, Day One of camp, off the start line of what the Stampeders hope will be a 183-day marathon.

It may not be making a 1,000-pound elephant vanish into thin air, but Bo Levi Mitchell’s got one helluva act to follow.

His own.

“Personally, I’m gonna try and go out there, lead my offence and do it again,’’ he promises.

“MOPs are things that’ll come if your entire team is having a great year. It’s about We, not Me.

“So make sure we go out, lead the league in offence again and make sure we’re in a position to go after it at the end.”