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A pair of era-defining Saskatchewan Roughriders are heading into the Plaza of Honour.
Roy Shivers, the general manager of the team from 1999-2006, and Darian Durant, a quarterback with the team for a decade and 2013 Grey Cup champion, will be inducted into the Riders’ Plaza of Honour at halftime of Saturday’s game against the B.C. Lions. Kickoff for the game is set for 5 p.m.
Running back Steve Molnar was also set to be inducted this year but his family can no longer attend the game this year so his induction will take place in 2025.
Shivers — the first Black general manager in the league’s history — had a keen eye for talent, which led him to sign or recruit 11 players who would go on to join the Plaza of Honour themselves. In a single trade in 2006, he obtained Durant and Kerry Joseph, who both went on to win Grey Cups as quarterbacks. Shivers was inducted into the CFL Hall of Fame as a builder for his role drawing talent to Saskatchewan and several other teams around the league.
He says it feels good to be back in Saskatchewan.
“Nothing has changed, people are still nice,” Shivers, 83, said. “When I go somewhere people are like, ‘Hey Roy,’ and it’s a lot different than when I was here. People have been real, real good.”
Durant was the Riders’ most-outstanding player in 2009 and 2010, and held the CFL’s passing record in 2010 with 5,542 yards. In his career, Durant played in 174 career games, throwing for 31,740, 164 touchdowns and 115 interceptions.
“It’s always good to be back first and foremost but just to be back in this capacity and you realize what this weekend and week is about,” Durant said. “Going in with the man who brought me here to Saskatchewan, you do a lot of reflecting and it just brings back a ton of memories.”
The story of the Shivers’ era can’t be told without Danny Barrett, the head coach throughout the entirety of his tenure in the Land of Living Skies.
“I wish Danny was here to go in with me and my coaching staff because they did most of it — I was just the guy who took the verbal abuse,” Shivers said.
Barrett, who is now the running backs coach and assistant head coach with the NFL’s Houston Texans, is glad to see Shivers go into the plaza.
“Roy is one of the best talent finders ever known to mankind,” Barrett said. “He took it upon himself to scour anywhere and everywhere to go find talent to help teams get better — guys no one ever knew about.
“It was only a matter of time. I’m just glad it happened while he is still able to travel and enjoy his years of retirement … It was only a matter of time before the Riders recognized all the talent he brought through there during those seven years we were there together.”
The first two seasons were tough for Shivers and Barrett as they tried to move this team on from a 90s era that didn’t see a lot of success.
“The first year, we were horrible,” Shivers said. “I couldn’t believe how bad we were, especially on defence.”
Shivers said one of his proudest days as a general manager here was when the Riders qualified for playoffs in 2002 — ending a four-year absence from the post-season.
“My thing was you have to make the playoffs before you make the Grey Cup and people didn’t understand that it was step-by-step,” he said.
For Shivers, one of his biggest disappointments was not winning a Grey Cup for the franchise.
“That’s the only regret I have — I don’t think I finished the job,” Shivers said. “I knew we were going to succeed and we were trying to hold until we made it and we kept running into these off-the-field incidents. Other than that, I don’t have a problem with what we did here.
“Criticism doesn’t bother me. My mother used to criticize me all the time … I feel until the day I die I didn’t complete the job and I knew we were right on the cusp.”
Barrett believes that despite them not winning a title, they turned Saskatchewan into a place people wanted to play.
“In my last press conference, I said we left the Riders in a better place than when we found it. It was a place no one wanted to go to to play or coach when we got there,” Barrett said.
“We just brought that attitude in there we just weren’t going to keep games close, we were going to win games. We didn’t win a championship but I think the foundation was laid during those seven years where you look now and it’s a place where anybody and everybody wants to play and championships have been won, there’s a new stadium, the fans are still the best in the league and I think we had a lot to do with that.”
That era of success began with the Riders’ winning the Grey Cup in 2007 — the season after Shivers was fired but with a roster filled with plenty of talent he had brought in.
Then Durant took over as the full-time starter in 2009 and appeared in three Grey Cup games (2009, 2010 and 2013) and won one of them.
Durant admits it’s awesome to go into the Plaza of Honour with the man who brought him to Saskatchewan.
“It’s just a crazy moment going in with him,” he said. “I think back to our first year and our first team meeting and just being around him. He put everything in place and he did an amazing job.”
When Durant first arrived in Saskatchewan in 2006, he said his only goal at the time was just making the practice roster.
“If you just keep me around, I’m a young guy, and then maybe as I grow, I can have an opportunity,” Durant said. “It was just do what you can to make the team.”
Durant, who hadn’t associated much with the Riders after he was traded by then-head coach and general manager Chris Jones in 2017 to the Montreal Alouettes, was inducted into the plaza last season as a member of the 2013 Grey Cup team.
He said coming back last year helped him realize how big of an impact he had during his time here.
“Now that I’m retired and years away, when you come back you get to feel how important the era I had with my teammates and the era we put together and the success we had, it brought Saskatchewan football back to a level that was pretty much unheard of,” Durant said.
