His professional box career started when George H.W. Bush was still the US President, the Sega Genesis was one of the most popular video game consoles and Cheers was still on the air on NBC. The team that originally drafted him into professional North American box lacrosse but did not play for in the form of the Detroit Turbos has been defunct for 19 years.
John Tavares of the Buffalo Bandits in just a few months will play in his 24th season in the NLL at the age of 46. Almost a quarter century in the league and he’s still one of the most dangerous men in the game since his debut back in 1992 back when it was known as the Major Indoor Lacrosse League.
Last year at the age of 45, Tavares was 4th in Buffalo Bandits scoring with 51 points. He’s only 2 years removed from having a 41 goal season at the age of 43. The fountain of youth exists, it’s just in Buffalo at the Tavares residence and I don’t believe he intends on sharing it with anyone else.
In the realm of professional sports, JT is doing something that so few have ever been able to do, and that’s be productive in their 40s. Injuries have certainly taken their toll on the body of the NLL’s all time leading scorer but he’s only had one sub 40 point season in his career, which came in 2013 where he only had 39 points but played in 12 games.
He’s also one of the few players left in sports to be an original member of a franchise as his rookie year in 1992 was also the first year of existence for the Bandits. A year that saw them win the MILL title over the Philadelphia Wings (now the New England Black Wolves).
In other sports once an athlete reaches 39 or 40 years old the production really starts to diminish for most, but the staying power of Tavares is Gordie Howe like to use an example from the NHL. Howe put up a 41 point campaign with the Hartford Whalers at the age of 51 in 1979-80 as the oldest player in league history.
Oh, and until the 2012 season Tavares was playing summer lacrosse in either Major Series Lacrosse in Ontario or the Western Lacrosse Association in BC, something he had done since his Junior days going back to the early 80s.
The career stats of Tavares are mind blowing, he’s put the bar so high it’s almost out of the atmosphere of planet Earth. He holds the league record for most games played (260), goals (803), assists (914), points (1717) and jaws dropped (785,000) in a career.
Growing up, Tavares along with players such as Gary Gait and a very young John Grant Jr really got me into the NLL, these guys were absolute game breakers with Tavares and Gait being chief among them.
When I used to attend every Edmonton Rush home game as a media member before my part time move to Toronto last year, I had the chance to see the Bandits in Edmonton in 2012 which is quite rare with how the NLL schedule works out, and Mr.Tavares was in the line up. I was absolutely giddy to cover a game that Tavares was playing in.
Tavares’ knees have been a problem for him over the past few years so much of this game saw him playing mainly only on the powerplay but he was still incredibly dangerous as he had a 4 point night and he could have had more if not for the posts. Even in limited minutes and banged up he was still by far one of the most dangerous players on the floor.
Even though Edmonton had won I wanted to get an interview with JT for some post game comments.
I was told by Bandits staff that he would be out soon after the game, so I waited, and I waited. I was not leaving without talking to one of my sports heroes and after what seemed like 45 days….ok it was a little less than that) he finally emerged from the visitors dressing room. Even after a long night where he was probably hurting and just wanted to get onto the bus he was incredibly cordial and gave a wonderful quote to use for my website and college sports newscast. Classy on the floor and classy off the floor.
There is a topic with the legend that keeps popping up of course and that is the subject of retirement. Tavares knows that he can’t do this forever but there does not appear to be a set end date for when he will call it a career. For all we know we may be talking about John as an active player at the age of 50.
Father Time is attempting to win the race against an icon and right now he’s doing a pretty poor job of writing the final chapters on the career of a Buffalo sports icon.
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