MONTREAL – A teary-eyed Laurent Duvernay-Tardif announced his retirement from professional football on his old stomping grounds at Percival Molson Stadium, Thursday.
 
A 32-year-old native of St. Hilaire, Que., who earned his stripes playing football at McGill University from 2010 to 2013, "LDT" garnered world-wide attention on many fronts over a brilliant eight-year career in the National Football League.
 
"Last year, I was anxious to go back (after a one-year sabbatical from the NFL) and I fought my way through it to get a call from the (New York) Jets and get into the starting lineup," Duvernay-Tardif told the media. "But this year it just felt different, and I felt like I was at peace with not playing. And when it comes to football, you cannot cheat the game twice. I took a year-long absence during the pandemic, and I knew that if I stopped again, it would be over. It took me awhile to come to peace with that decision, but I think that it was the right one. I have a lot of projects and a lot of other passions, and I feel privileged to be able to transition smoothly towards medicine and focus on that full-time."
 
While playing in the NFL, Duvernay-Tardif graduated from McGill medical school in 2018, won the Super Bowl with Kansas City in 2020 and opted out of playing the following season to serve in the medical world at the height of the COVID pandemic. He returned to the NFL in 2021 and played parts of two seasons with the Jets.
 
"For the next two years, it will be pretty intense for me to go back and do my medical residency and focus on that," he said. "It's the last step of the process. I've got my doctorate in medicine and now it's time to specialize and I'm going to do that at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. After that, we'll see what kind of projects I will be working on. But for now, I think that its important for me to focus on the work that I am doing with my Foundation and my medical residency."
 
During his four seasons playing for McGill, Duvernay-Tardif was a three-time all-star and two-time All-Canadian. He was the second offensive lineman in school history to win the Forbes Trophy, awarded to the McGill male athlete of the year. A co-captain with the team, he also captured the prestigious Metras trophy as the most outstanding lineman in CIS (now U SPORTS) football in 2013.
 
"When I first got to McGill, a lot of people told me that I had to choose between learning English, learning medicine and playing football at the same time. So, I stopped football for about two months but (I missed it), went back in Week 4 of the season and asked (then) head coach Sonny Wolfe if I could come back to the team. He said 'sure' and I played as a defensive lineman for something like the last five games of the season and for me that was a game-changer.
 
"Like I needed football in my life as a student. To have that framework, the camaraderie, the moment when you can channel all your axis of energy to become a better student in the classroom. That's what football was for me at McGill and slowly, I became better and better. I remember when (offensive line coaches) Matthieu Quiviger and Paul Lambert was here. They taught me so much about what it takes to be an offensive lineman and what it takes to become a pro. I think that I was better equipped, and I learned so much those last two years at McGill and it helped me transition to the NFL."
 
Duvernay-Tardif was one of two CIS players picked to play in the 2014 East-West Shrine Game, a showcase primarily for graduating NCAA seniors. That was his stepping-stone to the NFL.
 
A 6-foot-5, 321-pound offensive lineman, he was a sixth-round selection by Kansas City in the 2014 NFL Draft. He became the third McGill product to make an NFL roster, a select group that includes Dr. Jean-Philippe Darche (BSc '97), a long-snapper for Seattle and Kansas City and Randy Chevrier (BEd '01), who was drafted by Jacksonville and played for both Dallas and Cincinnati.
 
LDT played eight seasons in the NFL, including seven with the Chiefs (2014-2020) and parts of two seasons with the New York Jets (2021-2022). He won a Super Bowl championship with Kansas City in February 2020 and opted to sit out the next season to concentrate on working in the medical field during the COVID pandemic. During his NFL career, he started in 71 of his 79 games played overall, including six playoff contests. In 2020, Duvernay-Tardif was named as the Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated and was also a co-recipient of the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canadian male athlete of the year.
 
"I don't have a metric to know if the sport is more popular than before at the grassroots level, but Laurent has obviously had an impact on the landscape of football in Quebec," said Ronald Hilaire, in his 10th year as head coach of the McGill Redbirds. "A lot more parents of recruits that I have spoken to, have noticed the fact that you can be a student-athlete and that it can lead to their kids staying in school and succeeding in sports. He's been a great ambassador for the sport."
 
 
SOURCE:

Earl Zukerman
Sports Info Officer
McGill Athletics & Recreation
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca
(514) 983-7012