By Perry Lefko,
SPORTSNET.CA
On any given Sunday, Randy Srochenski can be found preaching in St. Catharines, ON.
But this Sunday, Srochenski will be making football his priority.
Srochenski does long snapping for the Toronto Argonauts, and on Sunday the Argos are in Montreal to play the Alouettes. It’s the second time this season Srochenski has had to be absent from his Sunday duties at the Niagara Celebration Church to play football.
"Our church in St. Catharines is very gracious and they allow me to go and in some ways it’s a little bit of excitement for them; that one of their pastors is away playing football on that particular day" Srochenski told Sporsnet.ca.
It’s happened once already this season and depending if the Argos qualify for the playoffs – they’re currently second in the East Division – it could involve additional Sunday games.
The 35-year-old Regina native began playing professional football in 1994, the first seven seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the past seven with Toronto.
Srochenski had planned to retire after last season to devote his time to preaching, but the Argos called him when they realized the players they hoped could do the role weren’t capable enough. So Srochenski came back to the Argos, but only on a part-time basis, practising once a week when the team is working on punt returns and playing in the games.
On average he speaks once a month in front of the congregation, but it’s a busy day nonetheless.
"If you’re pastoring a church of 800 people one of your biggest visitation dates is obviously Sunday, that’s when you have a chance to see the largest amount of people, so I miss out on that opportunity," he said. "My during the week stuff doesn’t really get affected, so one of the things I miss is the opportunity to see people (on Sunday) because that’s the best time for me as a pastor to spend time with people."
Srochenski has been pastoring part-time for three years in St. Catharines, beginning as a youth pastor and moving up to a senior associate pastor.
"I’ve sort of always been in that role," he said. "I was a youth pastor for awhile, so I’ve always been there serving in different functions, but now I have the most responsibility I’ve had in the last three years. I’m thankful to the Argos that they allow me to be here once a week. If it works for them, it works great for me and it works great for the Church. I feel like it’s a great situation for everybody and that’s one of the things we really talked about prior to me coming back: can it work for everybody? I didn’t want to be in a situation where certain parties didn’t feel like they were not getting their dues."
Srochenski said on the days he isn’t practising with the Argos, he is long-snapping in the basement of his home.
"I try to get the insulation from getting too wrecked," he said jokingly. "You have to do something. You have to try to stay fresh, and really long snapping is a feel, so if you can feel it consistently, that’s good."
Srochenski admitted in his mind he had already made the decision to retire after last season, so it wasn’t hard to hang up his cleats.
"I think it’s easier to move on from football if you have something to move on to," he said. "I’ve been pastoring off and on for the last 15 years – even when I was in Saskatchewan I helped pastor at a church. It’s something that’s always been part of my life and something I knew once my football career is over I would go into full-time, it just so happened I now have the privilege of pastoring full-time and playing football. Football was never an issue that I didn’t want to play; it sort of became an issue of could it work."
Pastoring runs in the family for Srochenski. His father-in-law, Peter Youngren, is the senior pastor at his church. Srochenski’s brother-in-law is a pastor at the St. Catharines’ sister church in Toronto. Srochenski started going to the Toronto church in 2002 when he first came to Toronto, and that’s how he ended up meeting his wife.
