Professional football is filled with exhilarating ups and devastating downs. If there’s a constant, it’s that there’s an incredible amount of turnover. Coaches, players, and staff all move in and out of an organization at a tremendous pace.
Some are there for an incredibly short period of time, others for a couple of years. When someone plays for almost a decade with a team there is cause for celebration.
Long snapper Jake Reinhart first came to the Argonauts in 2013, was released, then made the team in 2014. After 117 regular-season games and a Grey Cup win with the Double Blue, Reinhart has decided to retire from football and join the Fire Department in his hometown of Guelph.
Reinhart was the consummate pro with an unshakeable sunny disposition. There is zero chance he won’t be greatly missed by his teammates. Now, if only there was someone around who could replace him.
Enter Maxime Latour.
Latour joined the Argos last year when Reinhart suffered a devastating elbow injury. When the season ended, Latour returned home to Valleyfield, Quebec to continue his aspiration to become a high-school teacher.
When Reinhart was injured again this season, the Argos knew exactly who to call. The question remained, was Latour ready to receive it?
“It was my first month off for summer vacation,” he explained to Argonauts.ca. “I was on vacation for three days before they called me. I came back from a two-week vacation and came right back here.”
It was if Latour was ready to be done with football, but on August 9th he learned that football wasn’t ready to be done with him.
“I wasn’t ready for it (the call from the Argos). I was working out, but it was kind of late after the start of the season, so I was focusing more on school – which was beginning in a month – than getting back. Now I’m back on the field.”
Latour brings a lot of talent to the field and, like Reinhart, a positive energy to the locker room. He’s a fascinating individual who lives on a school bus (Latour bus?) that he refurbished to include a sleeping area, bathroom, kitchen and living area, but that’s another story for another day.
Latour will be working directly with punter/holder John Haggerty and placekicker Boris Bede, who also punted last week in Ottawa. For Bede, Reinhart’s retirement is devastating news as the pair became close friends; but when asked by Argonauts.ca about Latour he burst into a huge smile.
“Max; the character, the yellow bus driver. He’s a very interesting character. I met him back in Montreal, so we’ve known each other for quite a while now. He’s a great guy. He’s his own character but he’s a cool guy and accountable.”
Having Latour replace Reinhart again was a no-brainer for Bede.
“We knew that as soon as Jake went down, we had to make a call and I said let’s just bring Max back again to make sure we have someone we can count on.”
So, the Argos once again have as their long snapper the school teaching, school bus living long snapper who has also worked on a blueberry farm.
Hang on…blueberry farmer?
“Two years ago, I was working on a farm with (former Alouette and Redblack) Nicolas Boulay. He bought a big piece of land. We tried to develop some new techniques to grow things without having to water them.”
Huh?
“You dig a hole in the ground,’ explained the Sherbrooke University graduate. “You put some wood in it and put a bag of dirt over it, so the wood is like a sponge and retains the water. Over it you put a big pile of hay, so the water stays in the ground. That’s basically how we did it.”
We told you he was interesting.
The baton has now been passed from Reinhart to Latour. The latter is thankful for the former’s advice. The two have different techniques in the snap itself, but Latour is particularly happy about Reinhart’s lessons in another specific area.
“In blocking schemes, he helped me a lot with how to release the ball and get up faster. He stood in front of me and threw me a ball just so I could get up and catch the ball. That helped me a lot because I really had to work on that.”
Perhaps Latour can repay the favour by teaching Reinhart how to grow blueberries.
With the at times eccentric Latour now handling the long snapping duties, the Argos are in good hands, despite the departure of a true pro.