Canadian receiver Nate Behar is stepping away from the CFL after seven seasons in a way only he can.
The 30-year-old pass-catcher, who gained notoriety for his outspoken commentary and powerful written opinion pieces, said goodbye on Sunday with a video essay posted to his Instagram account. The six-minute-long ode to the sport bucked convention by arguing that football does love you back in a beautiful, raw, and poignant way.
A transcript of the video has been included below, though the source material is worth a watch in its entirety.
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“I had a lot of energy as a kid, so my mom put me in football. Turns out, it’s a pretty good place to put a kid with a whole lot of energy. And over the years, I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how the game won’t love you back. And I mean, I get it. I definitely get it. But my experience was not that.
From what I’ve learned in life, being loved by someone means that they’re going to be there for you. It means that when things are hardest for you, you can turn to them for support. It means that usually those people or things are gonna be there for you in your hardest times, and they’re also gonna be there in your happiest moments. And to me, that makes me think that I have to buck that whole cliche that the game won’t be there, because I think that football loved me. I think she loved me really f***ing well.
Sports are funny. You just learn a lot of sh*t. As a football player, you don’t always realize it at the time, but you get to my age, you get to this many years playing, and you realize just how much you took in. You learn things like how to move within this synchronized dance of 24 men that occurs when you’re in a huddle and you hear the poem ‘R Flow to Weak Right, Fake 360, R Oscar, Z Hawk, on one, on one, ready!’ You also learn things like most really hard moments are usually the precursor to euphoria, to happiness. Sometimes, it takes a little bit of time to get there.
You learn that people are really different and are motivated by different things. You realize that they have different quirks, they have different vices. You can learn that they can all still mesh and be motivated by different things, but still fit together and have joy while they’re doing it. You even sometimes learn that humans, and you as a human, are vulnerable, weak even. And conversely, you learn that you actually probably have more strength inside of you than you could ever possibly imagine, strength that’s comparable to the stories of ancient Greek figures from mythology in decades and millennia past.
I guess what you could say is that, in a lot of ways, football teaches you what being a human being is. It’s ugly, it’s hard, it’s euphoric, it’s difficult, it’s beautiful, it’s hilarious, it’s painful, it’s connected. It’s just life. And after 24 years, of football, there are too many people for me to thank in my life. What I will say is that if we ever shook hands, I truly hope your life is filled with happiness. From the bottom of my heart, I mean that. If you ever believed in me, if you ever took the time to build me up, then there is no hyperbole in me saying that my existence on this earth, and I believe the Earth’s general constitution, is better for you being in it, at least from my perspective. And I thank you. And if I’ve ever heard you say ‘I love you’ to me, and if I’ve ever been fortunate to say ‘I love you back,’ I hope I get to say it to you 1,000 more times before I die. And I hope I get to help you feel one percent, 10 percent, 50 percent of the things that you’ve helped me feel from your support.
I don’t believe there’s a way to tell this sport I love it more than the tears already due over the years playing it and in these last months, since I officially was done playing it in this mourning process, but I will try. I spent so many years trying to downplay the sport’s impact on me, even turning my nose up at it, thinking I could make it less important to me and therefore make any of the pain that it dealt hurt less. But that was just human error. Football, I love you. I thank you and I cherish the time that I spent with you, and now it is time that I say goodbye.
What I’ll finish with is a few facts that I know to be true now after all these years. That life
is really hard but, holy, if it isn’t beautiful — even when it’s not, even when it doesn’t feel like it. You lose, you win, and you’ll probably, if not definitely, lose again at some point. But the crazy part is that we get to play the game. In football, there are bad guys, bad coaches, bad players, bad drops, bad reps, bad hits, bad calls, bad fans, bad everything. And in life those all exist too and more. There’s a lot more at stake, but we get to play.
We get to feel joy, we get to feel sorrow, we get to feel love and passion, and f*** if that isn’t just the crux of it.
I guess my last 24 years of football — oh, that’s crazy to say — boil down into one truth. A loss does not define you, a win does not define you, but it’s how you play the game that is everything.
With love, Nate Behar.”
Behar wrapped up his career with the Montreal Alouettes in 2024, catching nine passes for 89 yards in 12 games. He spent the previous four seasons with the Ottawa Redblacks, setting a career-high with 59 catches for 727 yards in 2022.
The Carleton University product was originally selected fifth overall in the first round of the 2017 CFL Draft by the Edmonton Elks. He spent two seasons in the Alberta capital before signing with Ottawa as a free agent. He has made 188 receptions for 2,015 yards and four touchdowns over 98 career CFL games.
Prior to turning pro, Behar caught 178 passes for 2,577 yards and 21 touchdowns in four seasons with the Ravens.
Here’s hoping this isn’t the final time we get to hear the London, Ont. eloquently speak about football on camera.
