Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
Jon Ryan can remember walking into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in downtown Regina as a kid and admiring the inductees who lined the walls.
Now, the 43-year-old former professional football player will be among those enshrined as it was announced on Tuesday that he is part of the Class of 2025.
“It means a lot,” Ryan said of his induction. “It wasn’t necessarily something I was expecting.
“Growing up as a kid, taking field trips to the hall of fame and seeing guys like Gordie Howe and Mary Bonnie Baker, people like that, to now be able to think that my name is going to be along theirs in that same hall is a pretty humbling.
“Maybe someday a kid will be able to walk in there and be able to have a dream because of me.”
Growing up in Regina, Ryan played high school football for the Sheldon-Williams Spartans before going on to suit up for the University of Regina Rams.
In 2004, Ryan was drafted by the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers and spent two years with the club, establishing a CFL punting record in his second season, before joining the NFL’s Green Bay Packers.
He spent two years in Green Bay before joining the Seattle Seahawks in 2008. In 2014, Ryan became the first Saskatchewan-born player to win the Super Bowl when the Seahawks topped the Denver Broncos.
After 13 years in the NFL, Ryan finished his career back in the CFL spending two seasons with his hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders before a final season with the Edmonton Elks in 2022.
And while he’s made a living out of kicking a football, Ryan was actually a talented receiver in his university days, leading the Reams in his second season before being drafted by the Blue Bombers as a receiver/punter.
“I actually loved playing receiver,” said the proud son of Bob and Barb Ryan. “And I think my dad talked to me one time he said, ‘You could probably work your butt off and be a fringe receiver in the CFL; kind of be up and down from the practice roster and maybe be a fifth receiver. And you can probably do that for four or five years and have a lot of fun — or you could go and kick for the next decade or two.’
“So when he laid it out like that to me, when I got to that first training camp and I was in a couple receivers drills with guys like Milt Stegall, it became apparent to me that I better keep up with this punting thing.”
And so he did. But does he remember when he punted a football for the first time?
“I was seven years old; just absolutely loved football,” Ryan recalled. “And it was every day at recess, every day after school, every day at lunch, just playing football with a bunch of seven-, eight-year-olds.
“And after, you know, four or five hours of that, seven- and eight-year-olds get a little bored, and I was really just left alone with the football, and I just started kicking it and punting it.
“It was really the only thing you could do when you’re left along with a football. So really, the way my punting career started when I was seven years old (was) just out of the love of the game of football.”
That doesn’t mean he was good at punting right away.
“No, that’s kind of what drove me even harder because I became absolutely obsessed with how I could make this ball go farther and higher,” said Ryan. “And it just became such an obsession that it was something, one of the only things in my entire life where I just could never get sick of it.
“I could do it for hours on end. Even when I was almost 41 years old, playing professional football for the 19th year, I could still just do it all day. I absolutely loved it. I miss it. It’s truly my number one passion growing up and all the way through my adulthood.”
Attempting to come up with a list of people that helped him in his career, Ryan reflected on the support of his parents, siblings, wife and numerous coaches along the way.
“Actually, I couldn’t sleep last night just thinking about all the people that have made this happen for me,” said Ryan. “It really takes a village to raise a kid, and you know, it takes a village to put a guy in the NFL as well.”
Ryan will be formally inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame during a ceremony on Sept. 20 alongside Julie Foster (athlete; rugby), Noah Miller (athlete; water polo), Brad Hornung (builder; hockey), Klara Kesmarky Miller (builder; gymnastics), the 1997 and 1998 Regina Rams football clubs and the 1978 and 1980 Saskatoon Harmony Centre women’s softball teams.
“I feel like it’s kind of a result of a dream coming true,” said Ryan. “I felt like when I was trying to make the NFL make the CFL, I was in full control of what I was doing and I could work hard and kind of make the team or whatever.
“And I felt like this is more of an honour than a dream because it’s just kind of something that’s been bestowed upon me from all these great people. So it just means the world to me and I don’t know if I could have ever thought it was going to happen when I look back that far.”
tshire@postmedia.com
