By Stampeders.com Staff

In 2001, at the tender age of 30, Vince Danielsen chose to walk away from football.

One of the many great targets for Stampeders quarterbacks in the 1990s and into the 21st century, the Vancouver native decided to concentrate his efforts on a growing fitness business in his adopted hometown of Calgary.

In addition, Danielsen had decided the time was perfect to move on to the next chapter of his life.

“I’ve achieved everything I want in football,” Danielsen said at the time. “I’ve played in four Grey Cups and win two. The last game I played, we won the championship. I don’t know how much more I can accomplish.”

That final contest — during which Danielsen made five catches for 73 yards — was the 2001 Grey Cup as the Stamps upset the heavily favoured Winnipeg Blue Bombers. The day after the Stamps’ title, Danielsen turned 30.

Despite battling chronic hamstring issues during his final two seasons, Danielsen remained a valuable contributor to the Stamps offence. Over his career, he was part of an embarrassment of riches in the Red and White receiving corps as David Sapunjis, Allen Pitts, Terry Vaughn, Travis Moore, Brian Wiggins and Peewee Smith recorded big numbers on the receiving end of passes from Doug Flutie, Jeff Garcia, Dave Dickenson and, in Danielsen’s final season, Marcus Crandell.

Danielsen racked up 468 catches for 6,068 yards and 33 touchdowns during his career, and yet nothing in his playing career could ever match a childhood accomplishment — beating cancer.

At the age of 15, Danielsen was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. His chances at survival, he was essentially told, were a coin toss.

“I wanted to be a professional football player,” he once recalled. “Empire Stadium was just down the street from us where I grew up in East Vancouver and my brothers and I would hop the fence and go play football on the BC Lions field until they chased us out.

“(The cancer diagnosis) made me understand how fragile life is. A lot of people don’t experience that until their 40s or 50s, and then they get scared. But I worked at being healthy from the time I was 15 because I don’t ever want a doctor to tell me that again. It gave me a different perspective of obstacles in business and in sport because I’d already beaten something that was very large to me.”

In the midst of his fight with cancer, he met one of his idols — Lions kicker Lui Passaglia. That visit later inspired him to create the Every Yard Counts program, which provides children battling cancer with a chance to attend a Stampeders game as his guest.

“(Meeting Passaglia) made a difference to me because it took my mind away from my sickness and all the daily things you go through as a child with cancer,” he said. “It made me focus and dream about all the things I wanted to achieve in life.”

Created in 1998, the program exists to this day with hundreds of children and their families having participated over the years.