Anthony Calvillo's unlikely friendship leads to raising money to help other kids

Despite officially retiring from the CFL in January 2014, famed quarterback Anthony Calvillo's still having a big impact on both Canadian football and Canada as a whole. On the field, Calvillo did some work for the Montreal Alouettes last year as an intern, and he officially joined the team as a full-time assistant in December and was named the receivers coach in January. Off the field, Calvillo has done lots of impressive things over the years as well, and he's continuing that around the country despite not being an active player. As Ian Hamilton writes in The Regina Leader-Post, Calvillo is in Regina for a fundraiser Friday. The reason he's there is particularly cool, though.

Hamilton's piece details the long-running friendship Calvillo's struck up with eight-year-old Milestone, Saskatchewan native Carter Brown, who's often travelled to Montreal's Shriners Hospital for treatment for osteogenesis imperfecta (commonly called brittle bone disease). Brown was a featured speaker at a golf tournament in Montreal last August that was raising money for the construction of the new hospital, and he met Calvillo there. The two have become close since. Here's the key part of what Calvillo told Hamilton about Brown (but go read the whole piece, it's well worth it):

"A lot of times he's pretty tired because he's going through his treatments or he's recovering from treatment, so we'll talk about sports or about family," Calvillo says from Montreal. "We just share what's going on in each other's life."

"We play some games, but most of the time we just hang out."

Calvillo admits it's "very unique" that he has developed a tight bond with a boy from small-town Saskatchewan, but there was just something about Carter - and a friendship has blossomed.

"To see this kind of character, this kind of attitude, coming from a young kid is something that I want to be around," says Calvillo, who's now the receivers coach for the Montreal Alouettes, the team he quarterbacked for 16 of his 20 seasons in the CFL.

"It inspires me and it inspires other people."

That inspiration is why Calvillo's in Regina. Brown is the Western Canadian ambassador for the new Shriners' Hospital in Montreal, and he's doing a fundraiser for it called An Evening With Good Friends at Regina's Delta Hotel Friday night. Calvillo has plenty of experience with taking on tough diseases, as his wife battled lymphoma in 2007, and he faced thyroid cancer in 2010-11. He's also done a lot of community work over the years, including suiting up for a game with kids in Montreal last September. Calvillo's time in the CFL was legendary for his on-field play, but he's also been an incredible ambassador for the game off the field, and this is just further evidence of that. It's great to see how he's connected with Brown and is using that connection to help raise money for a good cause.