Nate Burleson has become one of the most recognizable faces in sports broadcasting, but none of it would have been possible without his connection to three-down football.
The CBS Mornings co-host has made himself a household name off the back of a 12-year NFL career. Though he was raised almost entirely in Seattle, Wash, Burleson is a proud Canadian by birth and credits his father’s time playing for the Calgary Stampeders for setting him on the path to stardom.
“I was born in Calgary, Alberta. That’s why I have the maple leaf tattooed on my body,” Burleson told Bob ‘The Moj’ Marjanovich this week. “Listen, the reason that I am who I am today is because of my father playing in the CFL — not the USFL, not necessarily the University of Washington, not Balboa High School.”
Al Burleson played defensive back for the Stampeders from 1976 to 1981, with his third son, Nate, being born in August of his final season. In 79 career games, he notched 26 interceptions and six fumble recoveries, earning a pair of West Division all-star selections and All-CFL honours in 1979.
Nate never witnessed his father playing three-down football and the family moved back to the United States when Al signed with the USFL’s Los Angeles Express in 1983. However, it was only upon rediscovering his father’s CFL success that a young Burleson began to dream of a football career.
“I remember waking up one day, I was really young, and I just started rummaging through boxes, and I found the Calgary Stampeders box of all of his old memorabilia,” Burleson recalled. “I threw on his training jacket, his jersey, and it was just draped all over me. He had gloves and wristbands. And in that moment, I said, ‘I want to play for the Stampeders’, because I didn’t know the difference between the USFL, the CFL, the NFL.”
Inspired by Calgary’s “very cool” jerseys, the six-foot, 198-pound receiver began to carve out his own football legacy. Drafted in the third round of the 2003 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings, he would go on to play 135 career NFL games with stops in Seattle, Detroit, and Cleveland. Burleson caught 457 passes for 5,630 yards and 39 touchdowns to become the most prolific Canadian-born receiver in league history, adding another 2,809 combined return yards and four majors on special teams.
After his retirement, Burleson landed a job at NFL Network and became a rising star through the success of their Good Morning Football talk show. While he has since branched outside of sports with his job on CBS Mornings, he remains an active part of football coverage for The NFL Today and has been the face of the league’s child-focused broadcasts on Nickelodeon.
Producers have pitched a potential Father’s Day feature in which Burleson and his dad make a trip back to McMahon Stadium to tell his CFL origin story but, as of yet, there have been no official conversations with the Stampeders. That doesn’t diminish the franchise’s role in his meteoric rise.
“I started chasing and pursuing a career in football because I wanted to be like my dad and wear that same jersey,” Burleson insisted. “In an alternate universe, Nate Burleson, Al Burleson’s son, was a superstar receiver for the Calgary Stampeders.”
The Kansas City Chiefs (15-2) and Philadelphia Eagles (14-3) square off in Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, February 9. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. EST from the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, La.
The post ‘I am who I am because of my father playing in the CFL’: NFL broadcaster Nate Burleson dreamed about playing for Calgary Stampeders appeared first on 3DownNation.