By Brian Slemming

Photos courtesy of the Toronto Argonauts Football Club

Fans of the Toronto Argos’ football club had little to cheer about in the last two years, but this year, with the team playing much better, they are more optimistic. If the fans are right, much of the credit will belong to a real estate agent.

Early in July, in Toronto’s third game of the season with fewer than two minutes to go in a match against Calgary, running back Jeffrey Johnson was sent into the game to fill in for the injured starter. The ball was snapped and handed to Johnson, who quickly covered the short distance to the goal line. He barrelled across – touchdown! Toronto won its second game of the young season and moved to the top of its division. A great result for Etobicoke sales rep Jeffrey Johnson.

He never planned to become a professional footballer. In fact he had no aspirations to play football at any level. “I went to Etobicoke Collegiate. I was never very interested in football. My main sports interests were hockey, soccer and basketball,” he says. That changed in Grade 12, when a friend talked to him after they had been working out in the school gym. “You should try out for football,” his friend said. So he did, with mixed success.

Jeff Johnson

“I didn’t really know all the rules and I knew less about tactics, but I was young, competitive and fit, so I kept playing,” he says. Clearly the lack of either interest or knowledge made little difference. “In that first school game I scored 5 TDs.”

Then came university.  “My university move was based on academics alone. Football was never a consideration,” he says. He went to York University, which had a pretty unsuccessful football program, but Johnson joined the team. Although York did not improve sufficiently to win a Vanier cup, Johnson excelled. He was named outstanding rookie in 1996 and was a University First-Team All Star in 1996, 1997 and 1999.

Surely after such an illustrious university football career, dreams of professional football, perhaps even the NFL, were dancing in the young man’s head? “No, I never really thought about it,” he says. “My coaches said I would be drafted by a Canadian team in the first or second round of the annual draft, but they were wrong.” No Canadian team thought him worth a look so he was undrafted. Football was clearly not in his future. Until, that is, just before training camps opened in 2000. Two days before the Hamilton Tiger-Cats opened their training camp, Johnson was invited to camp, and after a good showing was signed by the Tiger-Cats.

He spent two years with Hamilton, then was traded to Toronto, where he has been ever since. Entering his ninth year as an Argonaut, Johnson is the longest-serving player on the team. In a league where a three-year career is the norm, he has proven himself to be a durable performer.

At 33 years of age, now married to Kelly and father of three-year-old Maya and six-month-old brother Justyce, Johnson knows the end of his professional football days are in sight.

“You always know football can never be a long-term career. Injury can end the most promising future, and if injuries are avoided the passing years make keeping up with the younger players harder, so there has to be another long-term career.”

If football was an unexpected career move, it real estate was a natural. Johnson joined Century 21 Brown in Toronto, where his father, Bruce McGuire, also works and his uncle, Glenn McGuire, is broker/owner.

That strong family connection has been particularly important for Jeff. Although football has a short season, just 18 games, it makes great demands on its players during the season. Every day is a practice. Away games mean days out of the office.

“I have had a lot of people in the office who have picked up the slack for me,” he says. He considers himself a successful agent, but football has been of no use in developing his real estate career. “That has been achieved the same as everybody else – through hard work, building clients and working for them,” he says. Johnson admits that perhaps one aspect of his temperament developed through football has helped. “I hate to lose, whether a football game or a real estate deal.”

Johnson uses his celebrity status as a CFL player to help raise awareness of several charitable activities he takes part in, including walks for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Meeting a professional footballer, I expected a giant. Not so. He is not tall (5 ft 9 inches according to the Argo register), a trim 211 pounds, but with the solid build of a strong man. When Jeff Johnson hits an opposing player, he remembers it. But it won’t be long until the final whistle is blown and then Johnson will be a full-time Realtor. He will not be hitting any other agents but his competitive spirit ensures that his presence will be noted.