 Media Credit: Patrick Fok
A marvel of resilience, Chevrier has made his mark with the Redmen
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Coming off a banner 1999 campaign in which he was named a second-team All-Canadian, Redmen defensive lineman Randy Chevrier was primed for a monstrous season in 2000 as a fifth year senior.
And then fate intervened. After training rigorously for the winter months and bracing for the dog days of summer, he was the victim of an unfortunate incident.
While working as a bouncer at the Peel Pub to earn a little extra cash on the side, Chevrier was stabbed in the chest after intervening in an altercation between several unruly customers.
The culprit of the attack, skirted off into the night and was never apprehended. Chevrier, the cornerstone of the Redmen defensive line since he burst onto the university scene as a rookie in 1996, was left writhing in pain on the street.
All of a sudden his seemingly bright football future was in jeopardy.
“It was a fluke occurrence, and it’s really scary to think back on it,” said Chevrier, recently named a first-team All-Canadian and as the first ever McGill winner of the J.P Metras trophy as the top defensive lineman in the country. “I suffered a punctured lung, and it was excruciating. The doctors weren’t sure if I’d be able to play football this season. At the time I was in the best shape of my life, and it was a tough thing to go through.”
Doctors prognoses aside, Chevrier, who had earned a reputation for his work-ethic and tremendous dedication to the Redmen during his first four years, wasn’t about to spend his senior season on the sideline.
Six short weeks after suffering the injury, Chevrier was back to his conventional routine of hitting the weight room and the gym.
By the start of training camp in late August, he was in good enough football shape to keep up with the rest of the team, and by the season opener he was in near peak form.
“The doctors went from saying I’d be out all year, to I’d be out for two months; I went for a second opinion and he said six weeks. I chose to follow the latter doctor’s advice,” said Chevrier, nicknamed “Crash” ever since he was the victim of a car accident in the summer of 1999, when he missed all of training camp before coming back to earn second-team All-Canadian status with the Redmen.
