Anthony Calvillo

Early life, high school career and family

Calvillo was born in Los Angeles, California. While attending La Puente High School, he was a two-sport standout in football and basketball. He is of Mexican-American descent.

College career

Calvillo spent two seasons at Mt. San Antonio College before transferring to Utah State University in 1992. After a solid junior year as starting quarterback, he had a terrific senior season in 1993. He set a school record with 3,260 yards of total offense in the regular season, and he also set a school record with 5 touchdown passes in a single game (he did it twice). With Calvillo leading the offense, USU won the Big West Conference championship for the first time since 1979. The Aggies finished the year with a 42-33 win over Ball State in the Las Vegas Bowl; Calvillo passed for 386 yards and 3 touchdowns to win MVP honors. It was Utah State's first-ever bowl victory.

Las Vegas Posse

After not being drafted by an NFL team, Calvillo started his Canadian Football League career in 1994 with the US expansion Las Vegas Posse.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

After the Posse folded a year later in the CFL U.S. expansion experiment, Calvillo was selected first overall by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the dispersal draft. While in Hamilton, Calvillo served as a backup quarterback to players such as Steve Taylor and Matt Dunigan.

Montreal Alouettes

In 1998, Calvillo signed as a free agent with the Montreal Alouettes, where he became one of the most outstanding quarterbacks in history. He led the Alouettes to the 2002 Grey Cup, their first in 25 years, where he was named the most valuable player in the game.

During the 2003 CFL season, Calvillo broke numerous Montreal Alouette passing records, completing 408 of 675 passing attempts for 5,891 yards and 37 touchdowns. In 2004, with 6,041 passing yards, Calvillo became the fourth quarterback in CFL history to pass for more than 6,000 yards in a single season (Doug Flutie, David Archer, and Kent Austin being the other three), earning him the East Division nomination for Most Outstanding Player for the third consecutive year. With Calvillo quarterbacking the Alouettes' offence, the 2004 Alouettes became the first team in CFL history with four receivers on one team all going over 1,000 yards receiving in the same season: Ben Cahoon (1183 yards), Jeremaine Copeland (1154 yards), Thyron Anderson (1147 yards), and Kwame Cavil (1090 yards). During the 2005 CFL season, Calvillo and the 2005 Montreal Alouettes would again accomplish the feat of four receivers on one team all going over 1,000 yards receiving in the same season (which had never been accomplished before the 2004 Alouettes precedent-setting team). The 2005 Alouettes set of receivers going over 1,000 yards receiving were Kerry Watkins (1364 yards), Terry Vaughn (1113 yards), Ben Cahoon (1067 yards), and Dave Stala (1037 yards).

The 2008 CFL season saw Calvillo hit a number of career milestones. On June 26, in a game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Calvillo surpassed Danny McManus to become the second-all-time leading passer in the CFL. On July 31, in another game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Calvillo became the fourth quarterback in league history to reach 300 career touchdown passes. On August 15, 2008, in a game against the Toronto Argonauts, Calvillo became the second quarterback in CFL history after Damon Allen to reach 4,000 career pass completions. With 5,633 passing yards and 43 touchdown passes, Calvillo won the 2008 Most Outstanding Player award. Calvillo led the Montreal Alouettes to the 2008 Grey Cup final, which the Alouettes lost 22-14 to the Calgary Stampeders.

In 2009, Calvillo added to his club records while reaching more CFL milestones. On July 23, 2009, he surpassed Canadian Football Hall of Famer Ron Lancaster's 334 career touchdown passes to move into second place all time. He sat out two games during the regular season, but still accumulated 4639 yards while posting a remarkable 72.0% completion rate, the second best single-season completion rate in CFL history behind Dave Dickenson's 73.98% mark set in 2005. Calvillo led Montreal to a 16-point fourth quarter comeback victory in the 97th Grey Cup on Nov. 29, when the Alouettes defeated the Saskatchewan Roughriders 28-27 on a last-second field goal known as the "13th Man" finish.

Calvillo won his third Grey Cup on November 28, 2010 at 98th Grey Cup in Edmonton, Alberta where he defeated the Saskatchewan Roughriders 21-18 for the second year in a row. He added to his record total of passing yards in Grey Cup games with 2470 yards, as well as setting the record for Grey Cup starts with eight. As of the 2010 CFL season, Calvillo is 3-5 in Grey Cup Championship Games.

In a post-game interview, he revealed that he would be undergoing off-season surgery to remove a lesion on his thyroid that was discovered after he injured his sternum during the season. On December 21, 2010, it was reported that Calvillo had successful thyroidectomy surgery to remove a cancerous lesion.

On July 15, 2011, in a game against the Toronto Argonauts, Calvillo completed his CFL record 395th career touchdown pass to Éric Deslauriers. On August 4 of that same season, and again against the Argonauts, Calvillo completed his 5159th pass completion to Brandon London to move past Damon Allen to become the leader in that category as well. Then, on October 10, 2011, Calvillo completed a touchdown pass to Jamel Richardson to become professional football's all-time leading passer, in the Alouettes' third and final game against the Toronto Argonauts that year. In 2012, Calvillo became the only player in football history to pass 5,000 yards seven times in his career. He reached 4,000 yards passing eleven times in his career (a CFL record), only Peyton Manning has reached the 4,000 mark more times in his career with fourteen 4,000 yard seasons. He also set another CFL record having 8 consecutive 300+ passing yards games in a single season, breaking the record he shared with Doug Flutie.

Calvillo signed a 2-year contract on December 13, 2012, with the deal keeping him with the Al's through the 2014 season. In Week 8 of the 2013 CFL season Calvillo left the game after taking a hit from Saskatchewan's Ricky Foley. Three days after the game it was announced that he had suffered a concussion, and missed the Week 9 game against the BC Lions and the Week 10 game against the Toronto Argonauts. On September 4, 2013 the Al's placed Calvillo on the 9-game injury list. On October 18, 2013 the Montreal Alouettes general manager and head coach Jim Popp announced that Calvillo would not be returning to play for the remainder of the 2013 season.

On January 21, 2014, Calvillo announced his retirement from professional football. Before his retirement, he was offered the offensive coordinator position with the Alouettes but declined. On October 13, 2014, Calvillo's jersey number, #13, was retired in a halftime ceremony at McGill Stadium. Upon his retirement, he was the last active player that played for an American-based CFL team during its expansion to the US in the mid-1990s.

Coaching career

On December 15, 2014, the Montreal Alouettes announced that Calvillo would be joining the team as an offensive coach in 2015. On January 29, 2015, Calvillo was appointed as the receivers coach.

After the firing of Alouettes Head Coach Tom Higgins, Calvillo was named the Quarterbacks coach for the Alouettes on August 22, 2015. After a few weeks, the team's offensive coordinator, Turk Schonert, was fired and Calvillo was named co-offensive coordinator along with Ryan Dinwiddie.

Going into the 2016 season, Calvillo was named offensive coordinator with Jacques Chapdelaine as his special advisor as he grew into the role. After head coach Jim Popp resigned and Chapdelaine was promoted to that position, Chapdelaine also took over play-calling duties from Calvillo.

For the 2017 season, Calvillo was announced as the quarterbacks coach.

Honors

In 2012 in honour of the 100th Grey Cup, Canada Post used his image on a series of commemorative postage stamps. The image was also used on presentation posters and other materials to promote the Grey Cup game and other celebrations associated with the centennial.

On October 13, 2014, the Alouettes organization retired Calvillo's number 13 in a half-time ceremony.

Personal life

Calvillo and his wife Alexia have two daughters and reside year-round in Montreal.