Catching up with John Farlinger

St. Albert's John Farlinger has had a multi-faceted career that has taken him to the Arctic, to football fields throughout Canada and to see the world as a travel agency owner.

But over and over he repeats one phrase and it's a telling one.

"In retrospect, that's probably the best decision I ever made," he'll say.

Farlinger categorized working as an Arctic oil patch roughneck as "one of the best things I did." But so was leaving that job to go to university.

Playing from 1972 to '78 as a defensive back for the Edmonton Eskimos and winning two Grey Cup rings would be an obvious "best" on anyone's list, but Farlinger also said leaving the sport when he did, at age 30, to start Farlie Travel in St. Albert was "a best decision."

Thinking positively is the nature of the man, but he's also quick to give thanks where thanks are due.

"I learned that from Tom Wilkinson. I learned to think, OK, if you do this, what effect will it have on others," he said.

Too skinny

By Grade 8 Farlinger knew he wanted to play football.

"I was such a skinny kid that when I told a teacher that I wanted to be a football player, he laughed at me," Farlinger said.

Making self-deprecating jokes is part of Farlinger's shtick.

"I had deceptive speed. I was slower than I looked," he said.

He may have been thin — just 180 pounds during his Eskimos years— but whatever his speed, Farlinger had persistence.

Though he didn't make his senior high school football team, he tried out for the Edmonton Wildcats. That didn't work out so he went to Canada Manpower and got a job in the Arctic. He didn't give up on football however, and when he came back to Alberta he tried out for his university team, then for the B.C. Lions and eventually for the Eskimos.

Wild and woolly

He has no regrets about the years spent away from football on the drilling rigs.

"Those two years on the rigs were a grow-up-quick experience, but I learned teamwork," he said, as he recalled a lonely stint at a place called Hoodoo Dome.

"I just started working on the rigs and the tool pusher asked for a volunteer. No one else volunteered and later I found out why. It was hundreds of miles from anywhere and it was cold and fogged in and dark and I was stuck there alone for 16 days."

Farlinger's job was to pack up a rig and get it ready to be moved on the first clear day that a helicopter could land.

"It was crystal clear and minus 50 degrees. We got everything loaded, including the last building, but the load was too heavy for the chopper so I jumped off," Farlinger said as he explained what it was like to wait without shelter for the helicopter to come back.

"A half hour went by. Then an hour. Then two. I wasn't hurt. But there wasn't much daylight. I stayed warm by running up and down the runway. I kept thinking, 'What if he doesn't come back?' "

Another hard experience came following a 16-hour shift.

Farlinger was given a leave of absence to go via helicopter to see a friend. Instead of leaving the rig, Farlinger went to sleep and a co-worker took his place. Forty-five years later the memory of what happened still brings tears to his eyes.

"When I woke up out of this deep sleep they told me the chopper had gone down. They were both killed – the pilot and my co-worker. They were my friends," Farlinger said.

Calgary Dinosaurs

After working on the rigs Farlinger went to the University of Calgary and tried out for the Dinosaurs football team. His coach suggested he try out for the B.C. Lions and Farlinger was drafted in the seventh round and later released.

"If you're seventh round, everybody else is playing before you," he said, adding that the last year he played for the Dinosaurs he was released again, but Edmonton Eskimo scout Frank Morris called him and asked him to try out in Edmonton.

Before 1972, when Farlinger started playing for the Eskimos, he estimates he played 25 games of organized football. He had to play catch up with some of the best players in Canadian Football League history, but with them he went on to win two Grey Cups before retiring.

"There's a lot to know mentally about football and I remember being ridiculed because I didn't know stuff. At first, they just looked to me like a whole bunch of people running all over hell. It's a football cliché that the game starts to slow down and you start to see it. You start to get it, and that happened for me," Farlinger said.

Farlinger resists the urge to give a play-by-play description of his position as a defensive back in those football years, saying only that he feels incredibly lucky to have had the experience.

"It was a great team and there were some great individuals who put winning ahead of everything. It was like the Arctic. I got to fly on choppers and ride on icebreakers and I parlayed all of that into this," he said, waiving his open hand expansively at his Farlie Travel office.

He is similarly reticent about his years as a football commentator with the bombastic Bryan Hall of CJCA and later CHED radio. Farlinger had no public speaking experience but he stepped into the role with ease.

"You didn't have to know how to talk if you worked with Bryan Hall. He'd ask, 'What do you think Farlie?' Then he'd answer himself, 'I tell you what you think, Farlie'."

Travel agency

To start his travel agency in 1978 Farlinger took $25,000 from his football savings, as well as a loan for $100,000, and formed a silent partnership with some Edmonton businessmen.

In recent years he has helped others who wished to start in the travel business by loaning them funds and providing mentorship.

"I do for others what those guys who helped me get started did for me."

Sadly three of his former Eskimo teammates — David Boone, York Hentschel and Bill Stevenson — died young, in their 50s, in part because they were unable to make the transition from football into regular careers. Their deaths led Farlinger to begin working with other former teammates to start an association to help players make the transition from sports into other careers.

In St. Albert he supports the community by working as a master of ceremonies at many different charity events and auctions.

Farlinger works with his wife Terri at Farlie Travel and they live in St. Albert with their two children.

"Things have turned out good for me. I played football with the Eskimos and had the time of my life. I did the Arctic thing and had a ball. I've developed one of the top travel agencies in Canada," Farlinger said, as he credited others for much of his success.

"I don't think it's that I've been that smart. But I learned to recognize good people and to work with them and to learn from them. It's simple if you can do that. If you can work hard and persist, it will pay off," he said.

John Farlinger

What's your favourite book?

"I read a lot, but not a lot of fiction. I just read The Great Crash Ahead, by Harry Dent and I like biographies such as Warren Moon's Never Give up on Your Dream and anything by or about Winston Churchill."

What's your favourite vacation spot?

"The place I'm going next."

If you were a tree or an animal, what would you be?

"I always thought I'd like to be a cheetah."

What's your favourite car?

"My first car was a 1955 Pontiac, but my dream car and the one I wish I still had, was a 1966 Pontiac GTO. Now I drive a 1999 Lexus SUV with 215,000 kilometres on it."

If you could go back and change one thing in your life, what would it be?

"I would have finished my degree. All I had to do was some volunteer hours and coaching. Why didn't I go back and get my last mark in physiology? Probably because I had a million parking tickets and in those days they wouldn't give you credit until you got rid of the tickets."

If you had total power, how would you change St. Albert?

"I'd wipe out apathy among St. Albert citizens and force them to be more involved in their community. It's only a handful of people who support all the good things that happen here. My dad used to tell me there's three kinds of people: those that make things happen; those who watch things happen and those who don't even know what's happening, and you'd better not be in the last category."

Tell us about your first kiss.

"I honestly don't remember. You're supposed to remember that, right?"